Muzai
by Marie9
Summary: Kaitou Kid killing a museum guard for a single, small jade statue? Shinichi knows that's simply not right. This is just the beginning of a complex, strange case that will test the skills of Shinichi, Heiji and Saguru as they work towards the truth. REDO!
1. Chapter 1

Hello, hope you enjoy this! R&R…Encouragement makes me a happy cat. :) Now with shiny new grammar and sentence structure- and back from the grave! *Random zombie noises* I have new fics I want to start, BUT old ones need to get done first!

* * *

"You're sure this was the work of Kaitou Kid?" inquired Megure as he frowned, frantically scribbling in his case log while trying to keep the details straight. He hated running a crime scene, especially in its first few messy hours of life. There were usually fifty chefs crammed into what felt like twenty square feet of kitchen and that usually caused competition, bickering and most definitely could spoil the soup- or taking it out of the metaphor, screw up a case enormously. Getting a midnight phone call to a museum was _not _how he had envisioned his quiet day off at home with Midori rather abruptly ending, but odd hours were part and parcel of the policeman's trade and Midori had grown very accustomed to them. Besides, she knew there was only one kind of case for which they would call the keibu in at said hour on said day off.

"Well, it seems pretty undeniable, at least at this point," replied Inspector Takagi Wataru with a rueful half-grimace and unhappy tone. "He was shown quite clearly on at least three security cameras in the actual act of pulling the trigger, and initial analysis seemed to show that the tapes weren't edited or tampered with." A short pause was accompanied by an introspective frown. "Of course, it'd be way too easy for someone to fake that getup of Kid's for the cameras…" he added with a mutter as he returned to photographing the path of a set of bloody footprints that encircled a shattered, now-empty display case almost too perfectly.

"It was him, keibu. He left a note; I'll show you a copy in a few moments." Inspector Satou Miwako got up with an exasperated sigh and resurveyed the messy crime scene with a practiced, still slightly unbelieving eye. "But I will add that several things here are _way_ out of his usual M.O." She grabbed a small notebook out of her pocket and flipped to scrawled, messy notes she had made hastily while researching the young man (well, who knew if he really WAS a young man, or even a man at all; master of disguise, after all) who had earned the nickname of the Phantom Thief. "No warning note about his coming here. How quiet and without fanfare the break-in was. The rather large mess he made of the place, especially as the small jade figurine that was in this case was the only thing actually taken." She then glanced over at the far east wall. "And most of all, killing someone."

Satou finished the last sentence quietly as she watched technicians process the area around the body of the dead museum guard who lay leaning against the wall, legs spread and limp, lifeless arms dangling from his sides. The gunshot wound to his forehead that was the most probable cause of death as well as the rest of his face was eerily, carefully covered by a crisp white handkerchief that had only become mildly stained (which told them it had most likely been placed over his face after he had finished bleeding out.) Still trying to come to terms with what she had seen on the security tapes, Satou walked over to Takagi to assist him and a pair of techs with trying to process the glass case for any possible fingerprints. Of course, Kaitou Kid was so careful about gloves that the effort would most likely prove fruitless.

"So, let's review what we know so far," Megure began to the room at large as he flipped open his notepad which was rapidly filling up with the work of deduction and fact-gathering. "At about ten P.M. tonight the main alarm here at the museum went off. According to the cameras, Kid made his entrance at about 10:05; he _may_ have entered before then but 10:05 is the first time he's actually seen on any of the cameras. He made a beeline for this wing and this particular display case. He began to open the case- rather clumsily I might add, judging by the footage. Then at about 10:15, the now-deceased guard Kuromaru Akagi arrived in the wing and tried to confront him.

"Footage then shows Kid whipping a pistol out and firing a single shot at almost exactly 10:15. We'll get more cameras and more angles later, but for now we're assuming that the fatal shot was fired then. There's no further interference from Kuromaru after that point, and you can quite clearly see him slump against the wall into that position after the shot was fired. Kid then finished taking the jade figure and took off out a side window at about 10:20 with the first police arriving about five minutes after that.

"There are a few things we need to figure out. First is why the alarm went off five minutes before he actually appeared on any of the cameras. Second is why he actually entered the museum so far away from his target object. Third is why he didn't send his notice like he usually does. Fourth is why the huge mess was left. And, the last but most important initial question, why he killed the guard. I've spoken to Nakamori Ginzo-keibu and have scheduled an in-depth interview with him for tomorrow as he's very, very familiar with Kaitou Kid and has said he'll open his case files on him for me." He snapped the notebook shut. "I'll tell you all that Nakamori is thoroughly convinced this guy is an impostor but we'll see." He turned his attention to Satou. "He left a note, you said?"

"Yes, sir," replied Satou as she stepped forward holding a Xeroxed copy of the note that had already been whisked off for examination in the labs. "A handwritten note, which is unusual, but it does have his signature drawing of himself. It simply reads 'He shouldn't have tried to stop me.'" Even in Satou's calm voice, the words sent shivers down more than a few spines. "On the back is some indecipherable scribbling and a hand-drawn picture of a lemon wedge."

* * *

This was wrong, all wrong.

Kudo Shinichi actually shook his head violently in protest as he watched the initial news reports, dead certain that there was something far more going on than anyone was realizing. He just could not reconcile that callous, casual taking of a life with the Kaitou Kid he had come to know, albeit he possessed only a mild, somewhat adversarial relationship with him. His mind's eye took him back to the thief jumping out of a plane to save an old woman from committing suicide, and to an abandoned house where that same thief had gone to great lengths to try and prevent anyone getting hurt, including sticking around far longer than he had needed to trying to steer everyone away from the danger that lifting the large diamond would bring.

There was _also_ the fact that this weird heist and everything that had happened surrounding it was such a radical departure from Kaitou Kid's usual methods and practice that it should have practically _screamed _to the cops that this Kid was definitely a fake.

_The one thing that Kid would never steal is a life._

Those words, spoken with such absolute finality and certainty by Nakamori-keibu in the midst of another case in which Kaitou Kid had been accused of murder, rang in Shinichi's head like a bell. Nakamori-keibu had been so certain, and hadn't he been proven correct? Nakamori-keibu, who knew Kid probably better than most anyone except the elusive thief himself, had just _known_ without question that Kid had not stolen that painter's life. And now Shinichi's gut, which he relied on just as much as his brain in certain moments, was telling him that this was yet another case of Kid being set up. Why that was, he couldn't say, but he never questioned that primeval instinct which had served him so well (Okay, except for the night he had followed the Black Organization's agents and wound up a kid again, but that was another subject for another time.)

"What are you doing awake at this hour, brat? It's one in the morning! And why is the TV on-" Kogoro froze as the headline 'KAITOU KID - KILLER?' scrolled across the TV in large red block font and caught the corner of his eye. "What the hell?" he muttered as he began to sink down into the couch and put his full focus on the reporter who was covering the scene, which caused Shinichi to refocus as well.

"…police are confirming that they did find a note from Kaitou Kid and that it does appear to be authentic, though they are not releasing the contents of the note at this time. The name of the slain guard has not been made public yet as the family still needs to be notified…"

"I heard it on your radio, ojisan, so I turned on the TV. Sorry if I woke you up." _Not really, but whatever,_ Shinichi added mentally.

"Never known Kid to kill," muttered Kogoro with a sleepy yawn accompanying the statement. "They said what was stolen yet?"

"Only some small green, ugly statue." There were times Shinichi hated having to act like a child; he wanted to actually be able to discuss the case intelligently, but he was quite sure Heiji would express his displeasure through a pounding the next time they met if he woke the Osakan at this hour.

"Oh, must've been something from that thing going on uptown in the museum. Some jade exhibit or something moved in there last week." A wide yawn. "Only one small statue though? Weird."

Shinichi had to agree. Killing a guard and making that kind of mess for a single, small statue? There was definitely something more going on here than met the eye. Sleeping Kogoro would have to begin his work as soon as possible in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

Choochoo, it's the Crime Train!

* * *

"I should have guessed you'd show up to poke your nose in, Mouri-san," grumbled Megure as he saw the too-familiar detective approach with an equally familiar bespectacled boy at his side. "I would swear that you're the Grim Reaper himself with all the murders that you get yourself involved in." Secretly, Megure was relieved, but he would never permit himself to show anything but annoyance in front of the former detective turned private eye. There were too many strange things in this case for his comfort, and he knew that if anyone could get to the bottom of it all would be Mouri Kogoro. Well, once he slumped down to the ground, closed his eyes, and became the amazingly competent 'Sleeping Kogoro,' at any rate. For some odd reason, it was generally a whole different story when he was awake.

"Don't blame me. This brat here wouldn't shut up or leave me alone until we came down here once he saw on the TV that it was your people working the case." Kogoro finished this sentence by giving Conan a whack on the noggin. "Kept saying that there was no way Kaitou Kid would do this and that he had to come down here and look," he growled before quickly changing facial expressions. "So why do they think Kid did it?" His sleepy, irritated tone had become one of alert curiousity.

Shinichi listened intently to the reply; he was glad Kogoro had asked the question. "Well, there's only the little matter of at least three security cameras showing him in the act of pulling the trigger," began Megure in a solemn tone. "And his signature note, though it is way different from...wait a minute, why am I telling you unreleased information? AGAIN?" he demanded as Detective Takagi approached his superior, the detective doing his best to conceal a grin as he saw who had arrived on the scene.

"Because we seem to have devloped that habit," Takagi replied respectfully as he flipped open a large yellow pad. "Good evening, or morning, Conan-kun and Mouri-san. You're both up late." He gave the pair a polite nod then returned to issuing his report. "As we figured, sir, no fingerprints anywhere because Kid always wears gloves. And a search of a three-block radius for the gun we saw Kid use hasn't turned up anything so far. We're going to go out to a five-square block before we call in the next search team and relieve the first group."

"And the curator confirmed that nothing more than that small jade Buddha statue was taken?" Megure focused his full attention on the keibu.

"They won't be able to complete the inventory for at least four more hours, but they've finished two of the wings and have confirmed nothing missing from those other wings. This wing, and this particular case, seem so far to be the only things disturbed besides the window Kid entered at. Satou-keiji is walking with the curators while they're inventorying to make sure possible evidence isn't disturbed."

Shinichi simply _had _to check that window and area around where the killer had entered the scene. As Megure seemed to not have any more information to provide at the moment, he ran towards where he had seen several policemen coming from. Sure enough, he eventually found a few of them on either side of a window that had been forcibly opened using what Shinichi guessed was the large crowbar that was currently sitting on the ground in a sealed evidence bag. _Why did you give yourself so much work_? _This is pretty far from that statue, especially considering the fact that there was a window on the wall of that room where the statue was. _Shinichi tucked his hand under his chin as he stared at the open window. _And why that one lone statue? Surely there are any number of things in this museum that are worth much more. _The one question he did NOT find himself asking was why Kid had done what he had done, because he _knew_ that Kid had not done this.

No, someone had gone to amazing lengths to set Kid up; what he had to figure out was who had set him up, why they had done it and most importantly to him at the moment, _how_. He suspected that if he could figure out the reason that this particular window was chosen for entry, he would begin to make headway into what exactly had happened. He began a careful study of the area around the window and noticed one thing almost immediately: There were no security cameras pointing at the window. In fact, it seemed like almost all of the cameras were actually turned _away_ from the area of the window and those cameras also didn't seem to be completing thier normal, arching sweep of the area. This was yet another time Shinichi wished he had his teenaged body back, but luckily he had several policeman nearby he could point this fact out to. _Time for the usual method._

"Wow! Kaitou Kid must be a genius!" he exclaimed loudly, drawing the attention of several of the officers near the window including Takagi-keiji, who had come for a report on what they had found so far at the window.

"What do you mean?" asked one of the officers, many others commenting on the fact that a kid his age should be in home and in bed, not at a crime scene that was still a work in progress.

"He picked a spot where the cameras aren't ever looking at all! That's smart!" _C'mon, guys, get it, _he added mentally with a deep internal sigh.

"Now that you mention it," muttered Chiba-keiji, who had come in from the curator's room that was up the hallway and overheard the remark, "it does seem like those cameras aren't turning properly. They should always be turning a full 180 degrees from what I was told; those two there don't look like they're turning any more than ninety degrees."

"Yeah. I'm going to go find a ladder and check it out," nodded Takagi before dashing off. A few minutes later he returned with a medium-length ladder, walking rather awkwardly as he had the ladder hefted up onto his right shoulder and was trying to make sure the front and back of the ladder didn't hit anything. After the pair of detectives figured out the ladder's locking mechanism, Takagi headed up to the first of the cameras that wasn't turning. "Looks like they're not tied or anything," he called down. "But they're not turning like they're supposed to either. Hey Chiba-keiji, go see if you can get one of the guards to help you check out these cameras in thier main room. Maybe someone tampered with thier configuration settings or something."

"Will do," came the reply. After Chiba made sure his fellow detective got back down the (rather shaky) ladder safely, he approached one of the three blue-uniformed guards who had been on duty that night. Takagi then returned to the Megure-keibu to give an updated report. Conan decided to take advantage of the opportunity to further study the area outside of the window and slipped out the front of the building and around to its side, where he could see a single set of footprints leading up the the window. Unfortunantely, he couldn't get too close due to the cops still swarming. _Grr, if I was my normal self, they'd practically _beg _me to take a look and help them,_ he thought darkly before he stepped on something that made a sound like the breaking of glass. An electric shock coursed through his spine the instant that he moved his foot, bent down and picked up a now-shattered and slightly bent monocle that generally made its home on Kaitou Kid's face. _I knew it. He was definitely set up. _Shinichi's mouth set into a thin, grim line, and he actually began to worry for the young thief for the first time. _What happened here, Kid?_

* * *

Later that morning...

* * *

"So I heard you actually let civilians onto your crime scene this morning," began Nakamori-keibu as his fellow keibu shuffled into the room in a half-conscious, coffeeless and highly grumpy state. "Then again, it was Sleeping Kogoro. I suppose I could see making an exception for him."

"Yeah, that kid who lives with him apparently wouldn't let up till he brought him down." A dejected sigh as Megure slumped himself into a chair. "Not that he did us much good...Sleeping Kogoro never showed, only the mostly incompetent former Mouri-keiji." Megure then noticed the coffeepot on the keibu's desk and immediately helped himself to a cup using a small stock Nakamori kept by his desk. The rest of that desk was filled with case files of various thicknesses, all having one thing in common: The word 'KID' written on them in thick black permanent marker. "So let's get down to business. What do you think?"

"I told you exactly what I think last night when you woke me up." Nakamori began to flip open one of the many case files on his desk. "Kid was set up. He didn't do this." His tone brooked no argument, but Megure was going to have to stir the hornet's nest and play devil's advocate whether he wanted to or not. If Nakamori could convince him, however...

"Why exactly do you think that?"

"Because everything about what happened last night completely goes against Kaitou Kid and everything he's ever done in the past. The only common thread between this and his previous cases is that something got stolen." He emitted a derisive snort and flipped open another file, finally tossing a marked Polaroid evidence photo at Megure that contained a picture of the huge gem that Kid had heisted in that particular case. "He _always _sends the cops a warning. He doesn't kill. He steals jewels, gems, or things heavily laden with either of the above." Nakamori shut his eyes and took a deep, instrospective puff on his pipe before opening his eyes and continuing. "He's like a damn crow. He loves shiny, glittery things. Shiny, glittery things worth a lot of yen." He shook his head as he looked at the newspaper that was sitting on his desk that contained a picture of the small jade statue. "That statue is valuable, of course, but it's just not Kid's typical sort of target at all."

"Has there been an increase in violence by Kid in any of his more recent break ins? Any guards severely injured or anything?"

"No. The worst he's ever done- ever _does - _is either tie them up or render them unconscious, or occasionally disguise himself as one of them. And there's been no change in his behavior leading up to this, no."

"What about that gun he's carried around bef-"

"It's a trick gun. It shoots out playing cards and smoke bombs, things like that, _not _bullets, Megure-keibu." Nakamori rose from his seat. "You just have to trust me on this one. I've pursued Kid for the past five years, ever since he suddenly reappeared from his retirement, and I pursued him back before he retired. Whoever shot the guard last night _was _not him. Period." He indicated the files scattered on his desk. "Feel free to poke around in these all you want. By the time you're done I think you'll be as convinced as I am that someone set Kid up last night."

"I think I'll take you up on that offer." With that, Megure took the file containing the oldest heist and began to study while Nakamori went to the scene of a gas station robbery.


	3. Chapter 3

Here we go! Thanks to all who are reviewing, faving and watching!

* * *

Shinichi woke later in the day, feeling very refreshed and decidedly more clearheaded than he had been at the crime scene earlier. As he rubbed his eyes and put on his fake glasses, he decided that what he needed most at the moment was another fresh and (more importantly) unbiased point of view. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, he wanted to believe that Kid hadn't killed, and that niggling feeling was not allowing itself to be completely set aside. This of course was a Very Bad Thing. It _had _to be set aside in order to achieve the proper neutrality that was absolutely essential for any investigation that would actually lead to the truth, no matter how ugly that truth might be.

He therefore felt that the best course of action would be bringing in a totally new third party who hadn't had much interaction with Kaitou Kid beyond what they'd read in the newspaper or heard on the radio or television. Someone Shinichi would make a careful point of not biasing before they had examined all the evidence he himself had examined. Someone whose opinion he respected and trusted, someone with whom he could truly help tell whether his gut instinct was right or wrong through them agreeing or disgreeing that the evidence backed his gut hunch. And he knew exactly the teenage Osakan detective to recruit for the purpose.

_Well, if he would ever answer his damn phone_, he grumbled mentally after trying Heiji's cell for the fourth time in a ten-minute span. Ran came walking into the room as he hurriedly closed and hid the cellphone that he'd used, which was supposed to be with Kudo Shinichi and not Edogawa Conan. Shinichi then hid his grimace of displeasure at being both interrupted and unable to contact Heiji beneath an artifically bright smile as he began to slip into the grade-school role he was currently playing. _I guess I'm just going to have to try him again later, after Ran goes to the store. At least I know I'll have time then; she always goes grocery shopping when we don't have school since that idiot always buys the wrong stuff._

"Good morning, Ran-neechan," he chirped happily. "Is Kogoro-ojisan still sleeping?"

"Like a log. And I understand you dragged him out to that horrible murder scene last night very late, so he's very tired," she added in a chiding tone. "Why did you do that?"

"Well, I don't think Kaitou Kid is that mean. I told Kogoro-ojisan so and he agreed to drive down there to ask Megure-keibu what he thought because we saw on the TV that it was his case."

"Oh? And what did they say?"

"I can't remember everything but I know they said there was a tape of Mr. Kid shooting someone. And some window was open." _Grr, Heiji! I wanted to _really _talk about this case, why didn't you pick up your phone, you idiot? Now I'm going to have to wait till we're done shopping before I can even try calling you again._

"Well, go ahead and get dressed, we're going to go food shopping after breakfast, OK?"

"OK!" _Whee, food shopping. Not. _

* * *

The nightmare was coming again.

He saw Aoko ahead of him, wordlesly pleading for help with her eyes as she was hustled into a black van while bound hand and foot in thick steel shackles. Her captors were six white-masked men dressed entirely in black, well-tailored three-piece suits. For some reason in the nightmare he was in his white Kaitou Kid uniform even though it was the middle of the day and they weren't in a museum or other place where large jewels might possibly be showcased, but rather the small, cramped back alley behind his house. He pulled out his multipurpose, multi-ammo gun and shot razor-tipped cards at the six, who just laughed it off.

Laughter that sounded curiously like 'glub, glub, glub.'

Kuroba Kaito began to break out in a sweat mentally as well as physically; he knew what was coming next but for some reason he could never wake up until the horrid thing had played out its full course.

He instantly sprang to action in the dream to save Aoko, tearing down the six adversaries with little difficulty using his various tricks after the cards had done no good. Finally after about ten minutes he managed to heap them all in an unconsious pile. He then decided to find the key to free Aoko from the shackles, and everything went smoothly until he went to tear off thier masks to expose thier identities-

OH GOD FISH.

Kaito was rendered totally immobile and helpless by the sight of the giant goldish face that had been revealed under the first mask, paralyzed with fear and disgust. Try as he might in the nightmare, he couldn't get himself to ever move after that horrible, giant fish face was revealed, whose effect was amplified once the strange fish-human regained consciousness, got up and began laughing at him in that strange, glubbing laugh. He tried to raise his fist to knock the fish-man out again, but he never could. His hand shook as he tried to pull out his trick gun while the other fish-humans tore off thier masks as they, too, regained consciousness...

It was always at that exact moment that Kaito woke up in a full, cold sweat, shivering and with the sound of the evil fishy laughter ringing in his ears. He was just thankful that his mom had never asked him what his nightmare was about, as it was far too embarrassing and ridiculous to ever publicly admit. As more of his consciousness began to filter in, he realized that he didn't smell his mom's cooking-but she always cooked breakfast on his day off from school! Wondering if he had perhaps woken up in the middle of night or something because it was so dim, he looked with bleary eyes over towards his alarm clock.

Wait...where was his alarm clock?

Deciding that this was a case of mental cobwebs not clearing yet, Kaito rubbed his eyes, trying to clear the sleep from both his eyes and his brain. He blinked twice and looked over at his nightstand again, which his small alarm clock was neatly perched on.

OK...wait...his nightstand was missing along with his alarm clock?

Kaito now forced himself to sit up fully and to try and fully take in his surroundings, the first trickles of fear making themselves at home in his spine. Weird comforter with a design he didn't recognize...Weird bed that he didn't recognize as well, both barely lit by a single, small low-wattage lamp over in the far corner. A lamp that he _also _had never seen before.

This was most definitely NOT his room.

The trikle of fear became a full-current blast as he realized that not only did he not know where he was, he _also_ had absolutely no idea how he had gotten here.

* * *

_What the hell? Why aren't you picking up your damn phone? _demanded Shinichi internally after he tried Heiji's cell for the sixth time in total that morning. They had finally gotten back from shopping after what had felt like roughly an eternity and a half to Shinichi, especially because he had to walk so many more steps in his small body. Ran was the model of speed and efficiency when she was in 'shopping mode' and it just plain wore him out after about the first hour and a half of keeping up with her frantic pace. He had finally managed to seclude himself temporarily in the living room while Ran began to prepare lunch and Kogoro was out at a pachinko parlor nearby. It was nearly noon- and every moment in the first seventy-two hours of a crime investigation was critical, particularly when a murder was involved, and because a certain someone wouldn't pick up his phone precious minutes were being wasted.

Just then there was a knock on the door. Realizing that Ran probably couldn't hear the door over the cacophony she was creating in the kitchen, Shinichi reluctantly repocketed his phone, made his way over to the door and opened it.

"Heya, Squirt! Surprise!"

Shinichi wasn't sure whether he wanted to be deeply thankful or really, really irritated at the sight of Hattori Heiji on the other side of the door. His ever-present Yankees hat was resting on his head and he was wearing a silly grin on his face, along with a slightly dirty pair of jeans and an old black T-shirt that was just slightly soiled as well. Shinichi decided to settle for irritated after realizing that Heiji had just called him 'squirt.'

"Why didn't you return my calls? I've been trying to call you off and on all-"

"I was too busy dealing with the train to get up here, and I figured you were trying to call me up here for that guard's murder that happened this morning." A brief pause while Heiji crossed his arms and assumed a mock put-out tone. "Hey, I actually hauled myself out of bed before eight A.M. on my day off to try and catch the first train here. Be grateful, Kudo." The whole time both detectives kept an eagle eye on the kitchen; the topic would have to rather abrubtly change if Ran came out of the kitchen.

"I might be more grateful if you didn't call me squirt!" Shinichi retorted as he stepped aside to let Heiji in, offering him the guest slippers before closing the door. He accompanied the statement with a death glare at the back of Heiji's head that...well...wasn't so much a death glare coming from a seven year old- a seven year old physically, at least. "But yeah, I called you up because I want to see what you think after looking at the evidence, seeing as how you've already been to the crime scene at a bare minimum." The trademark Kudo smirk showed itself as Heiji whipped around and faced him after he had finished putting on the slippers.

"How did you know? But yeah, that's part of the reason I left so early- I spent about an hour and a half there poking around."

"Easy. Your hat is forward instead of backwards, which means you're either investigating or thinking heavily about something. You dressed in clothes that you don't care about messing up-and those clothes are messy, which means work was done. You also said you came up assuming I would want to work with you on the case. I would hope that at a minimum after making such an assumption you'd decide to check out the crime scene before showing up here."

"Yeah, I did. Some interesting stuff there, but we'll need to discuss it after we eat." Heiji gave a pointed look at the kitchen, which Ran was emerging out of.

"Oh, Heiji-kun! I didn't realize you'd be coming; guess it's lucky I made a big batch of curry. I'll fix you a plate, if you haven't eaten lunch yet." After Heiji indicated that no, he hadn't eaten, Ran hustled back into the kitchen and fixed a third plate for thier visitor.


	4. Chapter 4

Time for more!

* * *

"What, you're watching that again? You'll get yourself cross-eyed if you stare at that video much more, Takagi-kun." Satou shook her head with a chiding sigh as she watched her partner intently watch and rewatch the surveillance tapes from the museum- or to be more specific, a very small piece of one of those tapes. Ever since they had finished piecing together and collecting the last of the tapes from the night of the robbery, the detective had done little but watch the tape over and over again, that same determined look on his face.

"Yeah, I know," he muttered in reply, never averting his eyes from the recording while he replied. "But there's just something there. Something that doesn't sit right, and I can't put my finger on it! It's driving me nuts." Takagi paused the tape, then wound it very slowly forward and backward, analyzing the action frame by frame. "It starts right here, after he disappears off these cameras here by the window at about 10:07; when he comes back into view at 10:12, there's _something_ off I just can't figure out. But I _know _it's there." He turned to Satou with a smile that quickly turned into a brief, polite laugh. "Does that sound crazy or what?" was his final comment before refocusing his attention on the monitors.

"Well, I think that all sitting here watching it over and over is going to do is tire your eyes as well as your mind. Maybe it would be a good idea to work on something else and then come back to it later after you haven't looked at it for a while. Sometimes looking at something so much can blind you to what's in that something."

"You're probably right, Satou-san. I think I want to go back to the museum and look over-"

Just then, there was a commotion from the front, and a few 'Welcome back, keibu' s could be heard over the general buzz of conversation and questions. This was followed shortly by Megure appearing in the back viewing room as he finished brushing off the last of the questions, the keibu immediately approaching the pair of detectives he'd assigned earlier in the day to try and piece together what had happened in the museum last night.

"I spent the last two hours talking with Nakamori-keibu and skimming over every Kaitou Kid robbery he's worked on since Kid's reappearance." Megure then grabbed a seat and slowly sat down into one of the plush chairs on offer in the A/V room while rubbing his chin in a thoughtful gesture. "This new guy seems to not be the same guy Nakamori chased over eight years ago, but the more I read over the newer files after talking with him the more this more wrong this whole robbery began to seem. Like Satou mentioned when we were doing our initial evaluation of the scene, this robbery doesn't fit Kid's usual M.O. at all, and neither does what he stole." A single cough. "Did you ever find out what was going on with those cameras there by the window he broke into? The ones that weren't turning correctly?"

"Yes, sir. The cameras were programmed that way the evening before the robbery." After Megure and Takagi responded to this with amazed expressions, Satou calmly added "And what's more, there is every appearance that they were programmed that way by our dead guard, Kuromaru Akagi."

"Say WHAT?" demanded Megure as Takagi rose from his chair, a slightly shell-shocked look on his face.

"Inspector Chiba confirmed it with the guards about a half an hour ago; apparently there's a special code that has to be entered to reprogram the camera's arcs or recording times that the guards are forced to memorize. It also changes every two weeks, and it's _also _only actually written down in one place, a single sheet of paper that's in a hidden safe in the curator's office. Needless to say that safe has already been checked as well, and there's no evidence of the safe having been opened recently." A brief pause ensued as she let the information sink in. "Which means that Kuromaru either did it himself, or provided the number to his accomplice. And the guard who switched shifts with him yesterday recalled that he was-" a brief pause while she dug a notepad out of her pocket and flipped it open- and I quote, 'messing around in the camera interface,' end quote, when he arrived and Kuromaru didn't seem too happy to have been walked in on."

"So then...Were Kid and the guard...working together?" muttered Takagi in a daze after a good ten seconds of silence had passed while the trio tried to contemplate this newest twist and what it could possibly mean.

* * *

"For starters, Kudo, I'm pretty sure that the guard that got killed was in on whatever happened there last night- well, the robbery of that statue, anyhow." Heiji followed this with a simple nod.

"Really?" inquired the shrunken tantei seated across from him with a cocked eyebrow. "What there made you think that?" This was followed by a nervous glance at the kitchen, where Ran was currently doing dishes. Luckily, the noise and distraction provided a perfect time for a (rather hurried) summary of Heiji's findings during his first foray. Shinichi was hoping the Osakan's findings would mesh with his own, but he didn't dare to say a word about his own conclusions from his brief visit to the crime scene until Heiji was totally finished.

"Well, the security cameras looked funny to me immediately, as did the other stuff that the police had already flagged as weird. I overheard that the dead guard seemed to have set up those cameras by the window that was broken into so that they weren't pointing at it," he explained simply. "Which leads me to my second point. I think that there were at least three people involved in whatever the hell happened there last night. The guard who got shot, Kaitou Kid, and a third person we need to figure out-the guard's partner."

"Why do you think there were three people involved in this?"

"I said _at least _three, Kudo." This was accompanied by a roguish, self-satisfied grin. "You probably weren't able to check outside stuff too good cause it was still dark and there were still cops all over the place, but I counted four sets of shoeprints-in four different sizes and patterns, mind you- outside and two different sets of tire tracks that go caught in the little dirt area where the museum is expanding its parking lot over on the northwest side of the building, one set overlapping the other in a couple spots."

"Well, one of those could be Kid's partner- He works with at least one person on a fairly steady basis who generally aids his getaways." Shinichi rubbed his chin in a thoughtful gesture. "Why are you so sure those weren't left by crime scene vans or something, or by officers working there?"

"Kudo, do you think I'm stupid or something?" Heiji nearly growled, his hackles clearly raised. "I made sure that none of the cops had parked or walked where I found the footprints and tire tracks."

"No. I just wanted to know, that's all. Remember, I didn't get to investgate alongside you like I normally do." A brief pause ensued as Shinichi looked down at the floor, concentrating on what Heiji had told him. He not only wanted time to think, he wanted to give Heiji some time to calm down. "That sure puts a whole new spin on things." He looked up again, a new thought having entered his mind. "Was there anything done to the jewel exhibit that was in the other wing, Hattori? That exhibit that was scheduled to open today?"

"Aha." The grin again. "That was one of the other interesting things. The jewel exhibit wing was one of the only wings that had absolutely no signs of damage on anything whatsoever." He offered a shrug. "Which is really weird to me, cause doesn't Kid normally go after jewels and gems?"

"Yes. Normally." Yet another strange twist in this increasingly bizarre case…

* * *

What had happened last night?

Kaito simply _could not _remember. He wanted to, especially since the end result had been him waking in nothing but his boxers in a strange bed in a room he did not recognize.

He suspected that this fact had something to do with the carefully mended and tended bruises, scratches, and general signs all over his body that he had been in one _hell_ of a fight at some point in the recent past (he wished he had a clock so he could see the time.) But a fight _where_? And over _what_?

It was just as he was making yet another serious effort to try and recollect where he had gone and what had happened recently when the first dull throbs of a headache announced themselves as deciding to take residence directly in the back center of his head. Kaito reflexively reached to rub the spot only to find that that spot was _full of PAIN AND SUFFERING AND OWWWMAKEITSTOP-_

He couldn't stop himself from emitting a small yelp of pain as his hand flew away from the amazingly sensitive spot while the spot itself began an angrily throbbing protest against the attempted rough handling. He then slowly returned his hand to the spot, gently, gingerly examining it and coming to the rather quick conclusion that he had one heck of a fine goose egg going. A goose egg which most likely explained why his mind was a complete blank after telling Jii-chan he was going to do...what? Grr, that was where his mind began drawing a total blank, his mental film fading and growing fuzzy before snapping in half and becoming totally dark, the image only re-threaded and restored once he had awakened in this strange room.

Well, he supposed it was time to a) find some clothes and b) figure out where he was, not necessarily in that order (but it was his preferred order.)

This was when he discovered that actually moving much beyond his pinkie was going to be the least fun he'd had in a very long time. Every bone, muscle, and joint in his body was letting him know in no uncertain terms that they did _not _want to go to work. At all. Every movement was absolute agony, and Kaito cringed mentally when he realized that it was only going to get worse before the pain would begin to subside. Simply sitting totally upright felt like running and completing a marathon, he was so drained and tired after the process had finished. _What in the HELL happened last night?_

"Oh, you've finally woken up! Thank goodness, I was about ready to call a doctor in." This familiar voice was followed by the tossing of a small bag onto his bed. "I hope they're about the right size; I had to guess."

Well, whatever had happened, Kaito now knew that Jii-chan had been the one to scrape him up afterwards.

"Jii-chan," he finally managed to get out with a great deal of effort, "where did you find me?"

"Now, now. Just rest," the older man said firmly. "This is the guest bedroom of my house. The toilet is down the hall and to the right if you need it. I'll prepare some lunch shortly." With that, the older man quickly exited the room. _Too _quickly for Kaito's taste. Jii-chan had clearly avoided the question. Now Kaito had to figure out why.


	5. Chapter 5

Keep on R&Ring! Man, my grammar was awful at times... :)

* * *

Hakuba Saguru was most decidedly bored out of his highly intelligent mind.

Why had his mother chosen, of all places, a lake cabin in the middle of nowhere in the remote English countryside for a week's sojourn? For most people, it would have been a highly relaxing, atmospheric respite from the world. The fresh, crisp air, the bucolic country scenery in the height of fall, the leaves on the trees showing off in flashy reds, browns and golds as the trees began their preparations for the upcoming winter...

For Saguru it was pure, utter, complete torture.

He swore sometimes that when he sat on the front porch in another doomed-to-fail attempt at absorption in yet _another_ of the old, well-worn paperback Sherlock Holmes adventures he had memorized all the details of that he could almost _feel _his unused brain cells begin to slip away one by one, slowly but surely decomposing and evaporating through sheer neglect and non-use. And it was only the second day of the trip!

He was going to go out of his mind fairly soon if he didn't find _something _to stimulate 'the little grey cells,' as another one of his favorite fictional detectives would have put it. Preferably something crime-related, but at this point Saguru was willing to take a damn crossword puzzle or even some diabolical-difficulty Sudoku for that matter. _Something, anything! _Even the schoolwork he had brought with him so that he wouldn't fall behind had already been completely done, checked, and rechecked.

He had even begged his father repeatedly to ship out some cold cases for him to pore over when his mother had begun planning the trip to this far too quiet cabin the previous week, or to let him bring just _one _file with him, knowing that this mind-numbing monotony would be the end result. However his father had refused, insisting on Saguru taking a 'complete and total break' from investigative work while he and his mother were on the trip and also stating that that Saguru 'needed the break.' _No I don't, _he thought crossly as he shifted slightly in the plush chair on the covered front porch. After all, The Red-Headed League, brilliant as it was, could only keep him entertained for so long.

It was approximately thirty seconds later that Jabez Wilson's name suddenly turned into the kanji for a robbery.

Saguru blinked twice, then realized that the transformation from English name (he felt the Holmes series lost something in the translation to Japanese, and besides, he liked to keep his English well-polished) to Japanese kanji had taken place due to an afternoon edition of a daily Japanese newspaper being stuck directly in between himself and the adventure he had been attempting to lose himself him. He looked up to see who had done the placing and discovered that it was Shiori-san who had brought it to him. A newspaper! News from the outside! And containing front-page news of a robbery, no less. He wanted to jump up and hug her; instead he merely reacted with an inclination of his head followed by a polite "Thank you, Shiori-san. But where did you find a Japanese newspaper, of all things, in this neck of the woods?" He took it and lay Holmes down; he was sure the detective would have forgiven him had he actually existed.

"I went back into town and this front-page story caught my eye," she stated simply. "Watching you stew was driving _me _crazy, and I needed some food supplies," she finished dryly before entering the cabin to begin preparing their late dinner. Saguru eagerly dug into the paper, quickly taking in every detail-

Had he just read that right?

KAITOU KID-KILLER? VIDEOTAPE EVIDENCE SAYS YES, screamed the headline above a picture of a small jade Buddha statue that had apparently been the object of Kid's heist. Sauguru's eyes narrowed as he looked at the large picture of what they claimed Kid had stolen, killing one of the museum's guards with a single shot to the head in the process if the evidence collected so far was to be believed. _Kid kill? That's a new one, _he thought as he continued to take in the report of the event. _This sounds totally unlike him, _he concluded after finishing the summary. But there was something more than that that was tugging at his brain...

A jade Buddha statue...and a dead guard...

Why was this story setting off a distant bell in the back of his mind?

As he kept reading, the chime only became more insistent. He finally decided to take action and rose from the front porch seat, entered their cabin and instantly headed upstairs to the room he usually stayed in when they rented it. If the off-season housekeeper that tidied up when the lakefront cabins were shut down for the winter hadn't been too terribly thorough, his small stash of newspapers from last year when they rented the cabin would still be there, tucked in between the headboard of his bed and the wall. He smiled as he found that, indeed, the papers were still there, a mixture of English and Japanese newspapers he had secretly stuffed into his suitcase when packing for the previous year's excursion. (Saguru had had no such luck pulling a similar gambit off this year, as his mother had found his stash of papers tucked in between his carefully layered clothes in his suitcase. He suspected that his mother had known all along that he'd brought the papers last time but had decided to put a stop to it this round.)

He flipped on the room's light as it had begun to get well past dusk by this point and carefully began with the English-language papers, fairly certain that whatever it was that was causing his internal reaction had been in one of these very papers. Four of them were spread out in front of him, two American and two British dailies. He began with the British papers, carefully trawling through every one of the sections but particularly focusing on the obituaries and crime reports. _Something...something has to be here...but why am I so sure of that...? _he wondered as he refolded the first daily up and opened the second.

Paydirt.

Saguru allowed himself the briefest, subtle smile of self-congratulations as he had found what he knew was the very article that had fired up his internal alarm. A crime story dated almost exactly one year ago...

"Dinner," announced Shiori in her usual no-nonsense tone, increasing her volume so it carried up the stairs. "Come down before it gets cold."

He very reluctantly placed the paper down on his bed, being careful to leave it open to the article. Saguru then slowly headed downstairs to eat, giving a low whistle to summon Watson to his shoulder and letting the hawk settle before he increased his speed and stride. He would have to review the old story after the meal; one of the only things that truly angered Shiori-san was dillydallying with arrival at the table once the meal had been announced.

* * *

"So you're worried because you haven't been able to contact your friend at all today?" Kogoro let out a depressed sigh. This girl had sounded so worried and desperate over the phone that he hadn't had the heart to turn her down. But to find that the kid had only been missing for a day-OK, not _even_ a day-and that he was a teenage boy to boot...There were a million possibilities besides her childhood friend having been kidnapped. He tried, again, to explain it to her.

"Look...I can understand your concern, but this is a perfectly healthy teenaged boy. Just because you haven't seen him or been able to contact his cellphone doesn't mean anything. He could just be out today and not realize that his phone is dead." Kogoro gave a shrug that was supposed to have settled the matter, but this girl was having none of it. Once again, she shook her head stubbornly, arms crossed and eyes firm with resolve.

"We were going to go to Tropical Land today. He wouldn't just ditch me like that without a word and not pick up his phone when I called." Her tone seemed to indicate that she was tired of saying the phrase. _Well I'm tired of hearing it, _thought Kogoro darkly. _Ever think that that attitude of yours is why he's apparently ditched you? _

"When was the last time you talked to him? And the last time you saw him?" piped in a small voice.

Kogoro felt his mood go from annoyed to severely angry in a single moment. _The damn brat again!_ "Stay out of this!" he bellowed, and that would have been followed by a disciplinary knock to Conan's head had Heiji not intervened and caught Kogoro's fist.

"Hey now, he asked the lady a question," Heiji began with a grin. "Let her answer."

"Thank you! SOMEONE is finally listening to me!" the girl snapped, directing a piecing glower at Kogoro. She turned to Shinichi and Heiji with a worried look. "I last heard from him yesterday after we got out of school. He said he had plans that night but that we were still going to Tropical Land today. We were supposed to meet up in front of his house at ten." Unspilled tears began to dance on the edges of her eyes as she finished. "But he never came out. I asked his mom if she knew where he was, but all she knew was that he was out somewhere overnight and that he was going to call her at two."

"Well, why don't you wait till two and ask him what happened?" suggested Shinichi. "Maybe when he calls his mom will let you chew him out for forgetting your date!"

The girl flushed quite possibly the deepest shade of crimson either boy had ever seen before responding "It-it-it's NOT a date!" then hiding her face and laughing nervously. "We just go every year. He's a childhood friend of mine."

_Ran..._

Shinichi blinked, then realized he suddenly couldn't get the image of Ran saying the exact same things out of his head. Suddenly the girl _became_ Ran as she explained that her childhood friend, Kuroba Kaito, had done some stupid things before, but never actually worried her like this. Shinichi rubbed his eyes again and the illusion vanished, but it left him with the feeling in his gut that something definitely was going on with her friend that was out of the norm.

"Well, let's go look for him then." Heiji followed this with a simple nod. "This kid and I will help you since Mouri-ojisan over there is too busy to help."

"Good riddance," was the response from Kogoro as the girl walked out the front door, Heiji and Shinichi lagging behind so they could talk.

"You get this girl's name?" whispered Heiji.

"No, idiot, I was back in the room with you." Shinichi blinked again, unable to get the strange occurrence in the office out of his mind. "But I do think she's really worried about her friend."

"Yeah, me too." Heiji paused for a moment. "The weird thing was, when she was talking, for some reason, I kept seeing Kazuha in my head...Weird huh?"

The pair jogged to catch up with the girl, who was 'walking' at a speed that put Ran's shopping pace to absolute shame.

"Hey, we didn't catch your name, nee-san," called Conan as he had to nearly run to keep pace with the older two.

"Thank you both again for taking me seriously." She stopped just long enough to turn around and smile. "My name is Aoko. Nakamori Aoko," she finished before taking off at that amazing speed again.


	6. Chapter 6

More fun!

* * *

_Finally_, thought Kaito as Jii went out to pick up some food. _Now I can get up and walk around and try to figure out what's going on around here._

"Owowowowowowowow..." he groaned as he slowly, excruciatingly made his way out of the bed; swinging his legs over the side of the bed had nearly made him pass out. _OK, walking around isn't the right term. Shuffling around is more like it, _he thought crossly after he recovered. The aches and pains were even managing to get through the dulling effects of the extra-strength aspirin he'd happily taken about an hour ago. As he eventually made his way out to the hallway after a slow, laborious dressing procedure, every step taken and limb moved an extreme effort, he realized that there was no way in hell he was going to have the time he needed to search the entire house before Jii returned. _OK...if I were trying to hide something in this house, where would I do it? _Of course, his problem was amplified by the fact that this was not his own house. If it had been, he could have named off thirty different hiding places on the first floor alone (and ten of those his mom hadn't even found yet.) So in this case he was going to have to rely on his instinct, and a lot of luck.

_There's something missing here,_ he realized as he entered what he guessed was a combination of living and dining room, aching and sweating from the exertion. He ticked off what he was seeing in his mind. _Three-section sofa...a love seat...A dinette set with 4 matching chairs...Some copies of paintings...A couple small houseplants. _He moved further into the room, continuing his sweep _A stereo system_ t_hat's not plugged in with its power cord dangling and no power socket in sight...A bare wooden coffee table (wait, where are the newspapers or magazines?)...A TV hutch..._

Without a television in it.

_That's interesting, _Kaito mused as he approached the empty television stand. The fact was made even more interesting due to the fact that some peripheral dust lines very clearly indicated that there had been a television- or at least some sort of large, roughly square-shaped object- in the now-empty hutch and that it had been removed in a hurry. Enough of a hurry, in fact, that Jii hadn't bothered to clean up the dust that gave away that something had been there. _So you decided to move your television, or whatever was here. But why? _The obvious answer was that there had been something there that Jii hadn't wanted him to see.

Or something on the _television _that he hadn't wanted him to see, which Kaito's gut told him was the more likely of the two scenarios, at least until he got more evidence pointing to something else. _Well, this combined with the fact that Jii-chan won't tell me where he picked me up from last night doesn't bode well, _he thought wryly. _What the hell happened? _He needed to figure out what day it was- at least that would be some sort of start. He happily discovered a large tree-themed calendar up on the kitchen wall that Jii-chan even had the courtesy of crossing out dates on in a small, neat hand.

A trickle of fear-filled sweat slid down his back as a black hole emerged in his stomach and began eating at said stomach. If he was reading this right...today was...

Tropical Land.

"Ugh," Kaito muttered simply as he sank down into the couch, barely noticing the twinge of pain as he sat, his mind far too focused elsewhere at the moment. Aoko angry was one of the things he liked facing least in life, and he was going to have to face her while in what he knew was going to be one of her 'bite-Kaito's-head-off' moods thanks to his having completely skipped out on meeting her. Not only that, he was _also _going to have to come up with a plausible explanation for injuries that he himself could not recall sustaining. Well, he supposed that first things first was to call her and least let her know that he was still alive (though he probably wouldn't be for long once Aoko got a hold of him.)

Now...where was his cellphone? Wait, scratch that. Where were his _clothes_, for that matter? Jii had actually had to buy him clothes- Kaito had removed sales tags, after all, and Jii had mentioned having to guess at his size. So that meant that Jii had found him without clothes...? Or in nothing but his underwear, at least. So where was his Kaitou Kid outfit? One of his last clear memories was packing the hat with his usual assortment of tricks, so he knew whatever he had gone to do last night before waking up in this state, he had gone to do it as Kid.

So who the hell had..._taken it off of him _last night? And why? And how had they knocked him out? As improbable as the scenario seemed, it was the only one that made sense based on what he had heard and learned so far. He knew that Jii would have let him know immediately that he had collected the outfit if he had found it when picking Kaito up from wherever he had picked him up from last night, apparently knocked unconscious and very beat up. Had someone interrupted him during changing after a heist?

Kaito shook his head, dismissing that scenario quickly. If that had been the case, Jii wouldn't have needed to buy him new clothes because his clothes would have been there with him. Kaito needed to figure out where he had gone, and for what purpose, before he could begin to really piece things together. A jolt of fear followed this musing as he realized that whoever had taken it off of him would definitely have seen his bare, un-monocled face minus the hat. Which meant that they could probably identify him from a photo.

Oh_ shit..._

Fear turned to full-fledged panic as he realized that not _only _could whoever had knocked him identify him, but they _also_ most likely had his cellphone, which he usually carried tucked inside a hidden inner breast pocket of the tuxedo (albeit turned off while he was performing his heists.) So if they found it and turned it on they would not _only _have his face, but his name to go along with it. Hoping he could locate Jii's telephone somewhere nearby, Kaito hauled himself up off the couch with a wince and began searching for a telephone to call Aoko with. After he took care of that, he would begin thinking of ways to try and piece together what had happened so he could get completely out of whatever mess Jii had begun trying to extract him from. _We're having a good, long talk about last night when you get back, Jii-chan. I can tell you're trying to protect me from _something, _but I need to know. Then we can sort this mess out together, whatever it may be. _Now, to find that telephone...

* * *

"I knew it," Saguru whispered to himself as he read the details of the year-old paper. No wonder he had thought of this case, if only subconsciously at first; this old robbery and the current one that Kid was accused of mirrored each other so perfectly in detail that it was eerie. The only difference being that it had been another robber, a masked bandit who'd acquired the nickname "Buddha Thief" as he had seemed to have quite the obsession with small Buddha figures, especially of the jade variety. His spree had gone on for nearly six months, and according to the police a total of at least three small figures had been taken in a six-month span. He finally got caught after an eyewitness pointed police in his direction, the eyewitness having seen him running, statue in hand, away from the museum on foot after his final theft. A theft in which a guard had been shot and killed.

**BUDDHA THIEF PROCLAIMS HIS INNOCENCE OF GUARD'S MURDER, **shouted the year-old British headline. _So, his real name was Marc Jacobsen. And...they also caught him on camera shooting the guard before stealing a small jade Buddha statue that had been on loan to the museum. _Saguru's eyes narrowed in response to this revelation. _And he kept insisting that he hadn't done it all the way up until the trial was slated to begin..._

Well, now Saguru wanted to know what had happened after this date. The paper in his hand was dated fairly close to when Marc's trial had been due to start, so he would have to hope that the library that was three miles away would have suitable archives- he was only hopeful because this was an English and not an American daily. "Sorry girl, but you'll have to stay here. No predators allowed in the library," he remarked with a grin to Watson, and he swore that she shot him the avian equivalent of an annoyed glare in reply as he gently closed the door behind her once she entered. After finishing he walked out and called down the stairs "Do you mind taking me to the library for a bit of research, Shiori-san?"

"I'm sure she wouldn't but _I _most certainly mind," came his mother's reply up the stairs hard as diamond. He knew that tone: a steel glove surrounded by velvet that meant there would be no changing her mind and that trying to do so would merely get him into trouble. "Your father said you're to have a total, complete break from crime while you're here. You're lucky I even let you sneak some Holmes with you," she finished, cool Bristol accent brooking no argument. Saguru let out a very quiet annoyed huff and went back into his room before releasing Watson, who displayed her displeasure at being caged, however briefly, by greeting her owner with a small nip to the ear followed by a screech directly into it. Normally he would have scolded her, but...

"I feel the same way," he muttered to the hawk as he let her settle on his shoulder before poring over the old newspaper again. _Caged and irritable, _he thought darkly_. _Well, he would just have to make do with what he had for now: An old newspaper, full of inaccuracies and flaws that would render him no aid in figuring out what exactly was going on. Hell, it didn't even have the only other piece of information he was interested in- namely who had loaned the statue to that museum. He had been wondering if there was some sort of link there...

"What are you working on?" Shiori's faint voice issued from the other side of the door and Saguru went to open it, greeting his guardian-turned-sometime compatriot in crimesolving with a brief, tight smile. "Well, I found this paper from a year ago that has a story in it that's a lot like the one you brought me this morning," he explained as he showed her the two papers. "I wanted to go to the library to see how this old trial played out and to do some research into the statues themselves, but-"

"Mmm. I see." Shiori gave a conspiratorial wink. "I forgot some supplies; I'll be going to town again. Maybe you should write down any, ahem, _supplies_ you'll be needing." With that, she turned and exited the room. Saguru scrambled to find a paper and began writing down in a neat, precise hand the information he was looking for and the approximate dates as well.


	7. Chapter 7

Thanks again to all who are faving, watching and most of all, reviewing!

* * *

"So you were supposed to meet at Tropical Land five hours ago?"Heiji asked Aoko while Shinichi frantically scribbled down the details of the case-or at least tried to as best he could on the back of a food receipt. Luckily, Aoko's disbelief at the age of Heiji's assistant had quickly been explained away. Heiji casually mentioned that Conan was his 'junior associate' while giving Aoko a conspiratorial wink, leaving her with the deliberately, carefully created impression that Heiji was merely indulging the whims of an overly curious, albeit highly intelligent child. "My associate here will take notes."

"Exactly. We go at least once a year, and always sometime during this month," she explained. "We made these plans _weeks _ago and he never showed up today, and he won't answer his phone, and he also never called me eit-" She blinked as her cellphone began ringing. Aoko then dug into her purse and pulled it out before staring at the caller ID in confusion; she didn't recognize the number at all. She tenuously hit the call button and placed the phone to her ear. "Hello?"

Storm clouds quickly gathered in Aoko's eyes as her face darkened; both tantei were familiar enough with _that _look to take a few steps back in reflexive fear, having seen it multiple times from their respective female companions at various points in their lives. "Where have you been?" Her free hand clenched into a fist and began to twitch as she listened to the other end of the conversation, her head bowed down slightly.

_Hoo, boy. He's in _trouble**,** _not just trouble_, thought Shinichi grimly, feeling sympathy for her friend because he had been there himself-thankfully not many times. _That sort of look with Ran usually winds up with me being on the receiving end of a karate kick to the side of the head..._

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU FORGOT ABOUT TODAY?" she demanded, voice loud enough to carry clear from the Tropical Land entrance gate to the rear of the park if they had been within its borders. Several who were gathered at the park's admissions line turned to stare at the young girl, and Heiji and Shinichi found themselves and their 'employer' the subject of curious stares. "WE MADE THESE PLANS A LONG TIME AGO! KUROBA KAITO, IF YOU DO NOT GET OVER TO THIS PARK WITHIN THE NEXT HOUR-" Suddenly, her entire body language changed as she listened to his reply, going from anger to worry, her eyes becoming filled with concern instead of malice. "Well, why didn't you just say that you had a biking accident in the first place, you idiot? And why didn't you call me sooner?"

"Sounds like her friend is alright, if a little banged up," commented Heiji to Shinichi with a shrug. "Guess we can-"

"You were knocked out with a concussion last night and just now woke up?" she cried in a worry-filled voice, catching the attention of both detectives. _A concussion that knocked him out for so long...from a bike accident? A bike accident that happened...at night? _"I'll be right over." A look of confusion now crossed Aoko's features. "What do you mean you're not at your own house? Then where are you? Give me the address." _And he's not at his own house to boot, when he's recovering from that sort of nasty fall? _The curiosity of both boys was most thoroughly piqued by now, especially when they listened to Aoko's angry protests after he refused to give her the address of his current location.

"Look Kaito, you've obviously been hurt and need help. Just give me the address already." Aoko's tone indicated that she wouldn't take no for an answer, but she let out a frustrated 'hmmph' as she glared at the cellphone and stuffed it back into her purse. "That idiot hung up on me so he didn't have to answer," she growled before adding "And I know that if I call back, he won't pick up..."

"It didn't seem like you recognized the number he was callin' from," commented Heiji in a tone that was half statement, half question, hoping to squeeze whatever information he could from the call.

"I didn't," she replied in a voice filled with worry. "It was a local call though, so he's got to be somewhere fairly close by- wait a minute!" she cried in a tone of triumph. "I didn't recognize the number, but I _did _recognize the name! Konosuke Jii- he owns a pool place nearby! Kaito's taken me there before!" Aoko took off at a dead run, a run so fast that Heiji eventually had to lift Shinichi up onto his shoulders so that they could keep up with her. "Here it is!" She knocked furiously on the door of the house behind the shop, which was followed by the sound of something thudding to the floor behind the door.

"Wh-who's there?" inquired a muffled voice that sounded a lot like Shinichi's - well, when he was in his regular body.

"Kuroba Kaito, you let me in there right this minute!" demanded Aoko, who had gone from knocking to pounding on the door with her fist. "You need someone to help take care of you, and you're going to apologize to this detective whose time you've wasted!"

"Aww, jeez, Aoko, I didn't mean for you to come here. I told you, I'm-"

"YOU ARE NOT FINE! NOW OPEN THIS DOOR!" Aoko stood with her hands on her hips, an angry glare affixed to her face that could have melted the wooden door if such a thing were possible, and there was little doubt in either Heiji's or Shinichi's mind what would happen if her friend Kaito didn't open the door immediately. Violence.

A defeated-sounding sigh and then groan was followed by the sounds of locks and chains being undone, then the door opened slowly to reveal someone that could have passed for Shinichi's twin, even if his hair was slightly messier and his eyes had slightly more of a purple shade to them. He also looked like had been fairly roughed up, and Shinichi didn't fail to notice the slight glint of panic that had appeared in Kaito's eyes at the sight of him before it had been quickly suppressed by the other boy. _Why be afraid of me? I'm the smallest person here. _

"I knew it! You look awful! Where on Earth did you go riding that bicycle at that left you in such a sorry shape?" demanded Aoko as she entered the home. "And you can apologize to-"

"Sorry, detectives," Kaito managed to mutter to Heiji and Shinichi before staggering back to the couch he had ensconced himself in before the trio's arrival and beginning to neatly fold the guest blanket that he had borrowed. "But you guys really should leave, Jii will be coming back any minute and I was just getting ready to leave myself, after I-"

"You stay right there, I'll clean up your mess. You're in no condition to be moving around that much," Aoko stated firmly before she finished folding the blanket for him. He pointed to the back guest bedroom in response to her unspoken inquiry about where it went, and after she left the room Kaito returned his attention to the two others in the house to be greeted by a pair of suspicious, probing glares that caused him to reflexively shrink himself down into the couch a little.

"So," inquired Heiji with a knowing smirk, "what _really _happened last night? And, where were you last night?"

"I think I know the answer, Kaito," added Shinichi coldly. "Or should I say Kaitou Kid?" he added very quietly so that Aoko didn't hear it in the next room.

"I don't know what you're talking about," retorted Kaito quickly- _too _quickly, but Shinichi had seen his composure completely shatter for a moment before the denial and calm, collected mask both slipped back into place, and his gut told him that he was correct.

"If you don't know me and have never seen or talked to me before, why did you say 'detectives' instead of 'detective'? Especially when Aoko only used the singular form when talking to you on the phone. Even at that, most people would assume that of the two of us, Heiji was the only detective here. And there's only one guy roughly your age who calls me detective who I don't know- or I suppose I should say _didn't _know," replied Shinichi flatly.

_Damn it! _Kaito should have _known _that slip of the tongue, caused by fatigue and pain, wouldn't get by the little detective who had been a thorn in his side for so long. _So how the hell do I get out of this one...?_

"Alright, Kaito, I'm done cleaning up your mess," Aoko called before reentering the room and hefting him up by his arm. "Let's get out of here." With that, she walked him to the door as quickly as Kaito's aching body would let him travel, the two detectives hot on his heels.

"You've gotta answer our questions eventually. You're currently the A-1 prime suspect in the _murder _of a museum guard that happened uptown last night_,_" snapped Heiji in a low tone as he supported the severely injured thief once Aoko had gotten tired enough to nearly drop him twice. She had finally gotten far enough ahead of them that they could talk...

"WHAT?" The horror and shock that instantly filled Kaito's face along with completely panicked exclamation caused both Heiji and Shinichi to do a double take. _So he _is_ Kaitou Kid. I knew it. _Shinichi's smirk quickly turned into a pensive frown as he continued to study the thief's shellshocked expression. _He really didn't commit the murder, _thought Shinichi. _No way that reaction is faked. And it looks like Heiji's come to the same conclusion, _he noted as he quickly studied the Osakan's thought-filled face before they realized that Aoko was approaching them, Kaito's shout apparently having caused her to turn around and rejoin them.

"What's going on?" she asked as she finished her approach, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"Nothing!" the male trio chimed in perfect unison, only causing her eyes to narrow further. 'Nothing' was _never _'nothing' when Kuroba Kaito was involved, a lesson Aoko had learned far, far too well in her long friendship with him. "You had better not be planning another April Fool's prank, Kaito," she stated in a warning tone before falling in alongside the trio. "I think I'd better walk back here so you can't plan."

_Damn it...I can't remember...I _need _to remember! _Kaito's mind was filled with near-total panic, still processing the words of the Osakan-accented detective. His reaction had probably permanently cemented his being Kid in the pair's minds, but he couldn't help it. A MURDER? _What in the hell did I do last night? Was this what Jii didn't want me to find out about? _


	8. Chapter 8

Keep on faving, watching and most of all, reviewing!

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"Jii-chan? We need to talk_._"

Jii winced at Kaito's anger-filled tone, realizing that the young thief who was following in his father's footsteps must have finally figured out somehow that he was the police's current favored suspect in the murder of a guard at a museum last night. The same museum that Jii had rather hurriedly picked the boy up half-alive from once he had arrived at the scene after he heard the first calls of a homicide coming in on the police band radio that he possessed.

"Don't you dare go anywhere outside of that house. I'm dropping Aoko off and then coming right back over there," the teenager hastily snapped before he hung up the phone._ I was afraid he would see or hear something the moment he set foot out the door, _he thought with a dejected sigh. _I didn't ever think he would actually be able to get up and leave so soon with those injuries and the shape he was in..._

Jii supposed that Kaito had every right to be angry at him, after he finished reflecting on the events of last night and this morning from the boy's point of view. After all, Jii had avoided questions after he'd realized that the knock to the head had blacked last night out from his mind. Jii had also cut Kaito off from any newspapers or radios, trying to help the boy stay at ease while he recovered from his nasty injuries. Someone, or perhaps multiple someones, had really done a number on the thief; Jii had been equal measures of happy and absolutely shocked when he had discovered no broken bones in the course of his (very cursory) examination of Kaito while he had tended to his wounds.

Of course, he _also_ had to admit to himself that he had been initially fearful that Kaito really had played a role in the murder. (Hey, self-defense was self-defense; even if his father had believed in the motto of No One Gets Hurt, look where that had gotten him!) That had only lasted until Jii had come peeling up in the shoddily disguised equipment van wearing a hastily donned janitor's uniform after hearing which museum had been involved.

_There's a jewel exhibit that's opening over in Reika Museum next week that will feature a large ruby called the Phoenix Tear. They're actually moving the stuff for the exhibit in today, so I'm going to go break in and scout the territory out before I prepare to send my card... _

As Jii quickly poked around the scene, trying to find his young master in the far too short span of time left before he knew the first of the police would arrive, he panicked slightly. Why would he hide like this if he hadn't been involved somehow? A few minutes later he had discovered the frightening sight of an almost naked, unconscious and severely injured Kaito under a window that had been forced open. It was then that Jii realized Kaito had most likely been set up by someone else wearing his uniform.

Jii also had his suspicions who had done that setting up, but he didn't want to bring them up to Kaito. Snake and his minions were one of the only areas in life where Kaito was not completely rational- the two others being Aoko, his mother, and thier respective safety. _Well, resurrecting Kaitou Kid might be considered another non-rational area, _Jii mused with a grim smile before replacing his television. _He's determined to follow it through, even though it wound up costing his father his life..._

That dead guard...Jii pondered whether or not to tell Kaito about the guard and his connection to his late father. Oh, he'd aged several years, as had Jii, but Jii had recognized that face the moment that the news reports plastered the picture that had been used to issue Akagi's badge all over them. _The name may have changed, the face may have grown older, but you were definitely that man..._Jii would never forget that face, the face of one of the very last men to ever speak to Kuroba Toichi, a face that had been full of dark threats and anger at the time. _The question is whether that really means anything or not...No point in burdening the boy even further, especially with those wounds he has to recover from..._

"Alright, Jii. Spill it. Everything. Starting with the conversation I vaguely recall us having before I left."

Jii gave a startled start when he realized that Kaito had already reentered the house, a pair of unfamilar boys standing on either side of him. "B-but they-" He pointed a finger vaguely in the direction of the older boy wearing a hat and the younger boy wearing glasses. _What is he thinking?_

"They're detectives, Hattori Heiji and Edogawa Conan," explained Kaito, lifting his arm slightly to indicate which was which. "And they already know about me." As Jii's head spun from the enormity of that last statement, Kaito hobbled over to the couch and sat down slowly. "Jii, I'm going to get _arrested_ _for murder_ if we don't figure this out. Now _talk."_

"He's dead right," stated Heiji as he pulled his hat forward. "There's an APB out on Kaitou Kid, an' the Tokyo cops are working on building thier case even though they haven't found the weapon yet. So the best thing that you cando right now is tell us _exactly _what you saw that night, startin' from when he left."

"We don't think we did it, but we need to figure out who did. Quickly," added Conan. "You're just going to have to trust us and tell us everything."

_Trust a pair of detectives? And isn't the little kid one of the ones who's hunted Kid before? _Jii let out a deep breath before deciding that if Kaito trusted the pair of tantei well then, he would have to as well; not like they had any choice now that the secret was out. "Well, it started because you had decided to go to the museum to stake it out..."

* * *

"It's a _murder_ _case_, Mother! I have to get back to Japan and-!"

"You," retorted Saguru's mother with a glare that would have formed icebergs had she aimed it at the ocean, "will be going nowhere to help anyone until your scheduled plane fight on Sunday morning. Now head back up to your room, and if you want to eat the nice breakfast Shiori went to all that trouble to prepare you'll bring me all of the contraband reading material you've smuggled here." A pause as she set her left hand on her hip. "And I do mean _all _of it, Saguru. Including the newspapers that you hid in the headboard when we came here last year."

_How the hell did she-? No, this is _not_ the time to be worrying about that! _"I've found information that the Japanese police _need _to have! They may arrest the-"

"_Up._ And bring everything to me within ten minutes or you can forget about that ham Shiori's baking for lunch as well. You can eat some plain cold cuts instead." His mother turned and exited the living room to indicate that the conversation was over.

_That woman is completely _hopeless_. Hopeless! _Saguru fumed as he stalked his way up the steps. Watson was clearly picking up on her master's agitation, dancing about on his shoulder, ruffling her feathers and screeching lightly while flapping her wings. _Does she not understand that another innocent person may very well be accused of _murder_ if I don't get back there and straighten the police out? _He dipped his shoulder by Watson's perch and allowed her to step off of his shoulder and onto the perch before grabbing and tossing his mystery-oriented books and newspapers into a messy pile on his bed; he was _not _going to give into the temptation to straighten it all up, he was _not_!

Shiori had brought him the information he'd requested, and it had led down some strange paths that he had desperately wanted to traverse back in Japan. He had spent a late night analyzing the Buddha thefts and the trial surrounding them, and came to the conclusion that there was definitely something more going on there than was meeting the eye. Especially considering the fact that the buddha theft eerily matched the M.O. of the supposed 'Buddha Thief,' who had been securely behind bars in another nation when the theft and murder at the Japanese museum had occurred.

The buddahs- all three that had been filched during the spree in England that had ended a year ago, and the one that had been stolen in Japan- were part of the private collection of an extraordinarly wealthy American businessman who had inherited that fortune from his grandfather. The statues had all been donated to various charities and museums after his death. Apparently he had had a matched set of sixteen of the little green jade Buddahs, and in months leading up to that death from a heart attack, he had spent quite a sum restoring the little antiques. Whenever he had been asked why he had spent the money to refurbish them, he had merely smiled in reply and said "I like them."

There was something going on with these little buddah statues that were being stolen, Saguru knew that much. There was far too much strangeness and violence surrounding them to suggest otherwise. But thanks to a _certain parent_ who refused to understand that there were some things in life that were more important than sitting in the middle of the boring English countryside in a home made of giant logs watching the grass grow and leaves fall, he wasn't going to be able to go back to Japan and investigate much further into the matter like he wanted to so desperately. Not until it was too late...

_If I don't get back there and set them on the right path, another innocent thief will get arrested..._Kaitou Kid wasn't innocent of most thefts he was in the vicinity of, naturally, but Saguru was approximately 98.5 percent certain that he had not committed this particular one. He suspected that somehow, someway, the killer had gotten a hold of Kid's outfit and used it to commit a crime in his name, just like someone had done to the Buddha Thief one year ago. Perhaps the same person? _Of course, I need to figure out all of the hows and whys involved in that scenario...and why a guard died in both cases..._

"Two minutes left to bring me everything if you want a good breakfast, Saguru."

He winced as he realized that he'd gotten so caught up in thinking about everything that he had completely lost track of the time. Letting out a frustrated huff, he finished gathering everything into an extra pillowcase and prepared to haul it downstairs to placate his mother.

"You look positively melancholy, botchama," Shiori grinned as she walked into the room. "If you want to get to Japan so badly to help, that can be arranged..."


	9. Chapter 9

Keep the reviews, faves and watches coming! :)

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"Finally!"

This loud, happy exclamation from Detective Takagi carried throughout the Tokyo police headquarters. It eventually drifting into Detective Satou's ear and made her curious enough when she heard it to get up from her desk and walk over to the A/V room where her partner was still sitting and watching the videotape to find out what was going on. All she had been doing at the time was paperwork- in triplicate, of course- and her hand was in the beginning stages of a fierce protest in the form of cramping from all the writing and signing, so she deemed it a good time to take a break. _He's been cooped up in there all day, I wonder if he really has found something..._

"Finally what, Takagi-kun?" she inquired as she entered the room a few minutes later.

"I've figured out what was bugging me about this video! _Finally_!" he cried, looking as giddy as a kid poking around under the tree on Christmas morning. "Come and look at this, Satou-san." Satou walked over to his side, where he had the all-too-familiar sequence of Kid disappearing, then reappearing on the cameras and shooting the guard queued up and ready to play. "Here's right before he vanishes off of the cameras." Takagi flipped the frames back and forth, then fast forwarded a bit. "And here's where he reappears from disappearing into that blank spot underneath the window about 10:12."

"I see that- We've all seen it, Takagi-kun," Satou replied with an indulgent smile. "So what is it that you've seen that's different?"

"Look here- Here's two different pictures with Kid roughly in the same position, printed the same size so they can be superimposed on each other too. One is from before he disappears for that five minute span, the other one is from after he reappears and is confronted by the guard before the shooting. Notice anything strange once you look at them side by side?" asked Takagi with a satisfied grin that would have done credit to the Cheshire cat as he pulled out the two pictures and held them up for Satou's inspection.

"The suit looks a lot smaller in the second picture," stated Satou in a hesitant, puzzled tone after looking closely at the images for a few moments. Her next statements were more firm and certain as she quickly, fully realized where Takagi was going with this. "The arms are nearly bursting at the seams in the second picture, and there's wrinkles in the back across the shoulders that weren't there in the first picture- it almost looks like the jacket is too snug across the shoulders. It's not even close to that tight in the first picture." She cocked her head slightly, then finished with "The hat looks like it's riding much higher on Kid's head in the later picture, too, like it's too small for his head..."

"Exactly," nodded Takagi. "And since people don't grow that much in a five-minute span, I suspect that-"

"Someone else was wearing Kaitou Kid's uniform from after he reappeared through the murder and escape?" replied a young male voice possessing a thick Osaka accent from behind them, causing the pair of detectives to turn around and stare at the newcomer. "I think so, too, and so does my junior associate here," grinned Heiji with a pat to Shinichi's head, the older boy pointedly ignoring the glare Shinichi shot his way after the statement and gesture. "Conan called me up and asked me to take a look, so I came up from Osaka this mornin' and poked around. Hope you don't mind me comin' down here, oto-san cleared it with Megure-keibu."

"Heiji-niichan thinks that Kaitou Kid didn't do it," explained Conan. "He found a bunch of stuff at the crime scene that he thinks you should know about."

"There were at least four people there at the scene that night that were involved in this," stated Heiji with a nod as he grabbed an empty seat in the room. "Kaitou Kid, who was the first one on the scene, Kaitou Kid's assistant, Kuromaru Akagi, and Kuromaru's associate, who was also the killer. My thinkin' is that the real killer got a hold of Kid's uniform somehow and took advantage of the opportunity to disguise himself and frame Kid." _Of course, I know that that's what really happened because I talked to Kaito and his buddy, Jii-ojisan and figured this all out, but I sure as hell can't tell them that I know who Kaitou Kid really is..._

"Four people? But how do you-"

"Well, take if from the beginnin'," replied Heiji with a shrug. "First, I think what happened is this: That jewel exhibition is openin' in the museum's other wing next week, right? Well there's some big ruby in the collection, and it was moved in last week. I bet Kid couldn't resist the temptation to go scout the territory in order to start plannin' the heist, so he showed up and-"

"And what? Got himself knocked out?" inquired a disbelieving Megure-keibu, who had overheard the conversation from the doorway. "This is _Kaitou Kid _we're talking about- As if anyone could get the drop on him," he huffed.

"They could if they surprised him while he was otherwise occupied with casing the premises," replied Heiji. "I don't think Kid's arrival on the scene was planned, but the real killer took full advantage of the opportunity that presented itself. And don't forget that this guy was workin' with the guard- I'm 98 percent certain of that fact that the two of them were workin' together to steal that statue. Two on one is never a fair fight, after all."

"So you think that the two of them knocked the real Kid out somehow?"

"I don't have the hard evidence to back it up yet, but I think what happened is that either the real killer or Kuromaru surprised Kid when he was casin' the premises. Whichever one of them it was somehow dragged Kid into a fight- a fight leadin' right back towards their partner, who helped beat him up pretty good. Then the real killer says somethin' like 'Hey, let's let Kid get blamed for this!' an' then dresses up in Kid's uniform, supposedly so Kid can take the blame for the theft but really so that Kid can get blamed for the murder the real killer is about to commit on top o' the burglary."

* * *

"Shiori, have you seen or heard from Saguru lately? It's most unlike him to be late for lunch."

"I haven't seen him since you sent him upstairs to collect his illegally smuggled mystery materials, madam," replied Shiori in a perfectly calm tone as she served the baked ham she had prepared. "Shall I go check on him for you around the house?"

"Please do. He knows that being late for a meal irritates me."

Shiori nodded, and walked off towards the front of the house, opening and closing the door behind her to being a circuit of the house. Ten minutes later, she walked back in the front door and shrugged her shoulders. "I have not been able to find him anywhere. Perhaps he's still in his room?"

"Brooding about me taking away his mysteries for the duration of this trip, no doubt," his mother grumbled as she rose from her seat. She then headed upstairs to her recalcitrant offspring's temporary room and give him a piece of her mind. As soon as she entered the room, she realized that _something _was amiss. The room was...too neat and bare. Everything had been neatly made and tucked away and all of Saguru's personal items removed, like he had packed up and left without any plans to return.

"He," she muttered under her breath, "is in some serious hot water now." With that, she turned to exit the room.

Only to have the door slam shut in her face.

"Sorry, Mother, but I have to go back to Japan. I've already arranged the flight," stated her son from the other side of the door, tone muffled by the thick wood. "Shiori will let you out when I'm on the taxi and gone; don't blame her, I forced her to go along with it." This was followed by a click that she instantly recognized as the room's door being locked.

"SAGURU HAKUBA! YOU OPEN THE DOOR RIGHT THIS INSTANT, YOUNG MAN!" she demanded, pounding her fist on the door for emphasis. But he was already gone downstairs and fully packed, judging from the fact that she heard a horn beep out front a few minutes later that indicated that a taxi had been called. _He's been planning this all morning_, she fumed as realization dawned on her. _And Shiori was most certainly in on this- I'm willing to bet that that ten minute 'search' really consisted of Saguru tossing his packed things out of that window down to her..._

Just then, her cellphone rang, and she recognized the tone that she had set for her former husband. Deciding to get right down to the business of thier headstrong child that she knew he had called to check up on, she picked up the phone, placed it to her ear and said "Your son is dead meat the next time he steps foot in England" in the most polite Japanese that she could muster given the current situation and her anger level.

"Don't tell me that he-"

"Oh, not _only_ did he smuggle his Sherlock Holmes paperbacks in, not _only _did he somehow get a hold of a recent newspaper that contained a story that he began investigating secretly _(Shiori, I'm sure, _she thought with anger) but he has just now locked me in his former room, called for a cab to come out here, packed up all his things and arranged an early return fight to Japan. All entirely planned behind my back and without my consultation, I might add." She picked herself up off of the floor with her free hand, managing an angry huff in the process. "Your son has apparently inherited all of your less noble traits."

"I was afraid of something like that happening. Shiori indulges him far too much." A brief pause that was punctuated by a cough. "I'll deal with him when he gets back to Japan, though he inherited your stubborness, so who knows how that will go?" This was punctuated by a warm chuckle that merely infuriated her.

"Don't start. Don't you _dare_ start. Just tell him that he had better call me prepared to formally apologize before I will ever even consider letting him stay under my roof here in England again. Now good-bye." With that, she terminated the call just in time to hear the lock turning. Shiori stood on the other side of the door, her face full of unapologetic pride.

"I'm sorry, madam. I hope you'll forgive me for assisting him. But there are some things in life that are more important than a vacation."

What could she possibly say to that? "Just make sure that he properly packed up _everything _that he had in here, Shiori," she replied after a few minutes of thoughtful silence before exiting the room that had temporarily been her prison.


	10. Chapter 10

Man, this is taking a while to redo...but I'm glad to be doing it. Run-on sentences. Run-on sentences EVERYWHERE.

* * *

_Well, the fact that the police are asking for Kaitou Kid to turn himself in for questioning as a person of interest in a murder case is all over the radio and television still...could I have really done it? Again?_

He let out a high-pitched, tight laugh before quickly calming himself back down with a series of deep, relaxing breaths. He was amazed that he had to all appearances gotten away yet _again _with pinning the murder of a guard on a thief, albeit Kaitou Kid was significantly more liked by the general populace and far more high-profile than the first victim of his framing- who was currently sitting in a British prison somewhere protesting his innocence to this day. He was in fact still trying to fully process the realization that he had most likely _actually done it again _as his head spun with happiness and disbelief at his luck.

The first time he'd been working in concert with the thief (though that thief hadn't known it- he'd been very careful of that, masking his identity fully during their interactions) instead of the guard, and the guard's death in England had been a completely unplanned event that had veered towards near-disaster before righting itself. Only the fact that the thief had completely panicked after the shooting and run down the street, fake statue they had planned to replace the real one with in his hand, had saved his hide that first time as far as he was concerned. This time, he had concluded that Kuromaru's death was going to be an unfortunate necessity back from the beginning of their contact, but that was beside the point.

He still recalled seeing the ghostly, white-clad figure of Kaitou Kid out of the corner of his eye that night, the expert thief skulking around quietly in the general area of the still-closed wing that housed the incoming jewel exhibit. The thief had no doubt been planning out one of his spectacular, magic show-like heists for his wild fan club, and it had seemed to him at the time like _something_ was giving him a helping hand in his mission, whatever or whoever that something was.

Inspiration, though unoriginal, had instantly struck like lightning as he decided to take advantage of the opportunity- killing two birds with one stone. A way to simultaneously eliminate Kuromaru Akagi, who knew his identity and face, while sending the police off after another thief, one who this time would have absolutely no connection to him and the mission he was trying to accomplish- leaving him free to pursue his goal without hinderment. And Kuromaru had been suckered right in, helping to set up his own homicide.

_"Hey! Who's there?"_

_"No one but a phantom." That voice, that young, sure voice so filled with confidence and bravado had responded, echoing through the empty halls as he had snuck up behind the thief while Kaitou Kid was distracted by Kuromaru..._

_"What the hell is this?" Ten minutes later, whipping out the handheld pistol and staring down a wide-eyed Kuromaru Akagi over the body of the now unconsious and beaten Kid after 'borrowing' his uniform, stepping towards the guard before firing to be sure that the cameras would catch 'Kaitou Kid' in the act of murder. "You promised me-"_

"I promised you nothing." He muttered this sourly to the memories of the previous evening as he slowly opened his eyes, got up from his seat and walked over to his suitcase, which contained the precious Buddha that he had gone to such lengths to acquire nestled alongside its three jade brethren . _Four down, twelve to go, _he thought disgustedly. And he hadn't even begun to start in on the rest of them, much less the largest piece..._Two lions_, _two zebras_, _four children_, _four books, __four clocks and sixteen Buddahs__..._

He pulled out the piece of paper he always carried around with him in his coat pocket, though it was so well-worn with age that he really shouldn't have carried it around. Not that he really needed to carry it, either, since it had been thoroughly memorized so long ago, after the story had been passed down from his father with the careful instructions to continue the search if he wanted to. His father had totally ceased looking well over forty years ago, when he had needed the stability of a career-minded job to help support his new family, and never looked back- never resumed the frustrating search he had started.

_My first employer was eccentric, that's true, but I'm certain there's something there in what he said to me before he died...I wrote it down. No one would listen to me at the time because I was so young..._

After nearly ten years of searching, he had only managed to actually get his hands on four of the figures, though he had leads on several more in the other sets. There were times when he fully understood why his father had simply given up. It was as if the figures had been deliberately scattered so that they could never be reassembled and made public- like someone knew the secret that they held and didn't want it let out for the world to see. But he considered himself as doing that same world a public service, the one thing which drove him even to the dark depths of murder in his mission.

The puzzle of how to safely extract the precious contents the statues were holding was a whole separate issue. There had to be some trick that would result in the cargo not being damaged, and he was determined to discover this trick as well, not wanting to damage what he had spent so much time and money tracking down. He carefully extracted one of the jade Buddahs and held it in his hands after unwrapping it. _Bah, there is absolutely no obvious trigger or latch. Could he really have just-? No, what he encased them with is pretty valuable, too. I can't see him wanting them destroyed..._

* * *

"What is THAT question supposed to mean?" demanded Kaito after Shinichi had asked it, the thief's eyes filled with the fire of indignation and his chest swelled with anger.

"I didn't mean to make you angry. But it's a question that would help if you answered," responded the bespectacled tantei. "I just figured since you're a thief, maybe you'd know-"

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm just a _little _bit different from your garden-variety purse snatcher in my motivation and methods." Kaito snapped this as he cut the detective's reply off, the embers of his temper being prodded and poked by the pain coarsing throughout his body. "I only steal jewels and gems, and I return them when I'm done." The anger faded from his eyes and posture as he thudded back down onto the couch with a whimper. "I have absolutely no idea why someone would want a statue like that anyhow, or what it was doing in that exhibit. I mean, it looked like something you'd pick up at a Buddhist temple gift shop, not something that belonged in a museum, if you want my honest opinion."

"Yeah. I did a little diggin' on that statue, by the way," commented Heiji, who had helped Jii walk Kaito back to his own house after stopping by police headquarters and making sure that the police weren't off on the wrong scent. He'd left after becoming satisfied during his half an hour visit that they had their private doubts about Kid's guilt now even if they were still publicly calling on him to turn himself in. "Seems that it was part of a set of sixteen that were made for a really rich American guy back in the early 1900s. He never let the things out of his sight until he died in 1940s during World War II, from what I could find on it in the library."

"So were they donated to museums after his death or something like that?" inquired Shinichi, beginning to take notes down.

"Well that's what I can't seem to pin down exactly, which is buggin' me. It seems like they were sorta scattered to at least two or three different countries, primarily here in Japan, England and the United States. No one knows if this was at the direction of the will or anythin', they just sorta started poppin' up everywhere shortly after the guy passed away. The relatives didn't seem too bothered by them vanishin' either, which I also find weird."

"That's odd. You would think that the guy would have wanted to keep them together if he loved them so much," commented Kaito with a shrug. "Or maybe his survivors just didn't care and decided to let them go."

"Yeah, dunno about that one. Also dunno what the big deal is and why someone had to die for it. There are sixteen of the things, after all, even if they're mostly lost."

"Well, we need to figure it out. Because I'm sure that whatever the reason behind the theft was will lead us to the real killer," replied Shinichi firmly, earning a nod from both other boys. "And we at least know that the police won't be hounding Kaitou Kid quite as badly now that they have the possibility in their minds that someone else was wearing the uniform, even though he's still way up there on the suspect list."

"Don't remind me," the magician groaned, the thought of being a murderer not sitting well at all with him. "I wish I could remember anything more...It's a blank after entering the museum. Talking to Jii seemed to jog my memory some, though. I remember telling him that I was going to the museum and going there, I even remember busting in through the air vents. But I still can't remember anything from actually entering the museum till I woke up in his house with the snot beat out of me and this goose egg," he explained while pointing at the lump on his head.

They finished the conversation just in time for Aoko to knock on the door and demand to begin her ministrations, so the pair of detectives left after making plans to meet up at Kaito's house the next morning.

"My old man's not gonna like me missin' a day of school, but I think he'll understand. Kazuha already said she'll Email me the homework assignments for tomorrow, too, so no worries there," commented Heiji with a shrug.

"You came prepared," smirked his fellow tantei. "I saw you already had an overnight bag packed when you arrived this morning. Something at school tomorrow you wanted to get out of?" he added with a knowing grin.

Heiji was just winding up to pitch an angry protest back- that five miles they were due to run in P.E. was just _fine_ with him, really!- when his phone rang, the caller a number he didn't recognize. "This is Hattori Heiji," he answered in a slightly puzzled tone as he placed the phone to his ear. "Oh, yeah, I remember you- from the Detective Koshien thing. Hakuba Saguru, right?" Shinichi blinked when he heard the name, then remembered that the three had exchanged phone numbers after the ordeal. "Yeah, actually I'm workin' on the Kaitou Kid murder case with the kid with the glasses," he added after listening for a few moments in a serious tone. "Yeah, I know Kid didn't do it. I found some evidence that-" His face grew shocked. "A case like this in England?"

_What? That's right- Hakuba spends a lot of time in England, if I remember right. He must have stumbled on to something..._Shinichi listened much more closely to the conversation, even though he knew Heiji would fill him in afterwards.

"Meet you at your hotel's cafe tomorrow afternoon? I suppose I can, if you don't mind me bringing Conan." A final pause. "Alright then, meet you there," Heiji finished before madly scrambling for a receipt in his pocket and a pen to write the hotel's name down with.

"So what's up, Hattori? That sounded like an interesting conversation."

"Remember Hakuba Saguru, the blonde guy from that whole Detective Koshien mess? Well apparently he found a murder case in England that happened last year that's real similar to this one- statue stolen, dead guard. An' he's convinced that Kid got set up, just like he thinks that the thief in this other older case got framed. We're meetin' tomorrow afternoon at this hotel; he called me from a plane's phone. Apparently he's flying over from England right now."


	11. Chapter 11

Reviews make my day, but thanks again to the watchers and favoriters as well!

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"You," snapped Saguru angrily as he leveled a glare at the Osakan tantei across from him,"are rapidly reminding me of why I've never bothered to call you since the day we got picked up from that stupid island." The half-Brit settled back down into his seat before returning his attention to his cup of Earl Grey that was in front of him. He then added a small amount of cream and sugar that had been brought to the table along with the tea before savoring his first sip.

The three detectives were sitting in the restaurant of the hotel that Saguru was staying in, Shinichi slinking down into his booth seat as much as he could. He'd realized that while neither of the others he was sitting with had raised their voice at all since the meeting had taken this bad turn, the tone of the conversation had drawn a few stares. What had begun as a perfectly civil meeting had quickly descended into a near-argument after Heiji had begun to ask what Saguru had viewed (and therefore brushed off, angering Heiji) as 'pointless' questions. _C'mon, guys, this isn't the time for this...we have a murderer to catch! _

"Same to you pal, same to you," retorted Heiji, returning the glare with an equally nasty one of his own. "So it's suddenly somehow my fault that you made assumptions and nearly screwed up that case back then? Just because I punched out the glass thinking that guy might have still been alive and I wanted to get to him in a hurry, and then you decided that I'd destroyed evidence that wasn't ever there in the first-"

"We really shouldn't be worrying about any of those old cases right now- or any other cases right now, really." Shinichi broke in desperately, trying to refocus the group on the task at hand as well as the reason that Saguru had called Heiji in the first place: the murder case that Kuroba Kaito- well, Kaitou Kid- was still up near the top of the suspect list for. "We need to work on figuring out if there is really a connection-" _Crap, what am I DOING? I can't talk like my normal self right now-Hakuba doesn't know who I really am!_ He looked over at the half-Brit warily, who was staring back at him in a tone of mild puzzlement and curiosity. "A-at least that's what Heiji-niichan would normally say when he's not mad, right?" Shinichi finished as he whipped his head towards Heiji, desperately hoping to form any kind of distraction.

"Heh." Saguru broke the silence that had descended with a light chuckle after a few moments. He then reached down into a small backpack that was sitting by his feet and unzipped it, producing a thick stack of what looked like newspapers and photocopies, gently placing them down on the desk and beginning to unfold and sort them. "How sad that a child should be the most intelligent, logical one at this table." He gave Shinichi a pointed glance before turning his attention back to the stacks he had sorted out and grabbing one of them. "Right then. Down to business. I don't want the trouble I'm going to be in when I return home to be for nothing," not elaborating on what precisely he meant by 'trouble'.

"So when did this other string of thefts start exactly? The ones that this guy called the Buddha Thief engaged in?" inquired Heiji after he and Shinichi had spent a few minutes poring over the newspapers Saguru had brought with him. "I see a bunch of articles here about his trial once he was caught but they don't seem to talk about the actual thefts themselves much."

"That stuff is in this stack here, but I'll sum it up for you as briefly as I can." The other tantei patted one of the thick piles of photocopies and newspapers laying in front of him before polishing off his tea and beginning his narration. "There were three robberies in total, all of one of the jade statues in that set of sixteen. They were spaced out over about a year to year and a half. The first was when one of the statues had been placed up for auction by a charity it had been donated to. The thief broke into the truck that was transporting the items headed to auction by cutting a hole in the roof of the truck. The statue was the only thing removed.

"The second theft was from a pawn shop, where one of the statues had been hocked- the police attempted to figure out who had pawned it off with no luck, not that they looked too hard. Anyhow, once again, the statue was the only thing removed from the premises, and the alarm had been expertly disabled though nothing seemed to be gone. In fact, the statue wasn't even noticed as missing for two or three days, until the owner did his weekly inventory- they had assumed that the burglar had been frightened off by something or someone during the break-in and hadn't actually stolen anything.

"The third theft is the one with all the strange parallels to this current case, and probably the one we'll want to look at first and most closely," continued Saguru mildly before catching the waitresses' attention for a second tea. After she had removed the old cup and dishes and walked away, he began again. "This Buddha statue was on display in a museum as part of a jade exhibit. About a week into the exhibit, the alarms went off and the police and security rushed to the scene. The police arrived to find two of the guards cowering in the security room and a third guard shot dead right in front of the statue's now-empty case.

"At approximately the same time the dead guard's body was discovered, the Buddha Thief was seen by several eyewitnesses running down the street and eventually caught by police with a fake jade statue in hand. Videotape evidence showed someone firing the shot at the guard with the Buddha Thief clearly visible in the frame a few moments before the shooting. Granted it wasn't as damnifying as the video they have of Kid now, but it's an interesting similarity, don't you think?"

Just then, Shinichi's phone rang, and it was Shinichi's phone, not Conan's. Letting out a mild oath under his breath after he realized this fact, and knowing there was only one person who would be calling the number, Shinichi quickly made his excuses and slid down out of the booth and walked away from the table. He then began trying to find a solitary place to activate his voice-changing tie and answer the call. _After all, I can't always let it go to voice mail, or she'll get suspicious..._

"I hope the two of you will tell me what's really going on one day," commented Saguru in that same unflappable, mild tone after their new round of drinks had arrived at the table, Shinichi still chatting away quietly behind an empty booth in the far corner of the restaurant.

"What do you mean by that, Hakuba?" demanded Heiji quickly, hoping he could bluff and lie his way through whatever suppositions the other detective possessed. _This is bad..._

"I mean exactly that. That's all," he finished with a shrug before beginning to prepare his second tea. "If you don't think I haven't picked up on the fact that that 'child' is no typical child by this point in my interactions with him, even though those interactions have been admittedly limited, then you don't give nearly enough credit to my observational ability."

"Sorry. I have no idea what you're talking about," stated Heiji flatly, giving the other tantei a look that said 'Drop it' about as clearly as it could be nonverbally expressed while crossing his arms and sitting more upright in his chair.

"Mmm. I see. Alright then," replied the other with a nod before sipping his tea and glancing over at the booth Conan was hiding behind.

A tense silence permeated the table until a few minutes later when Shinchi ended the call with Ran, emerged from behind the booth and reclaimed his seat before sipping the milk he had ordered (hey, kids drank milk a lot after all-gotta keep up appearances.)

"Sorry, my friend called," Shinichi explained. _At least it's not a lie, though I wish I could tack a 'girl' onto the front end of 'friend'...but that won't be possible until I'm not in this tiny body any more..._

"That's fine. We didn't discuss much, so you haven't missed anything," replied Saguru. "We were just discussing a few possibilities regarding how the killer got his hands on Kaitou Kid's outfit. I sincerely doubt Kid would just willingly up and give it to someone else, especially knowing that the other person had murder in mind. Right, Hattori?"

"Y-yeah, that's exactly what we were discussing," Heiji burst out with a nod that was quick- too quick for Shinichi's liking.

"Well, maybe someone made an outfit that looks like his or something," offered Shinichi, having to play dumb to protect the thief. "Maybe they used pictures of him." _I want to know what you two really discussed while I was on the phone with Ran. I'll be asking about that later, Hattori..._

"Good idea, and there is a slight possibility of that even with what I'm about to tell you," replied Saguru. "The police already went down that path- they asked almost every cloth and hobby shop in the greater Tokyo area whether anyone had purchased a particularly large amount of white cloth in the weeks leading up to the murder, and their inquiries didn't find anything. But of course, it is the police- who aren't infallible, and don't always think far enough outside of the box either."

"Well, there is a possibility, weird as it might be, that the killer was wearing Kid's actual outfit," replied Heiji. "Conan and I went to the police headquarters this morning, and talked with a couple of the detectives working the case. Their videotape footage seems to indicate that two different people were wearing that uniform- one before Kid vanished off of the cameras for a good five minutes, one after the reappearance and during the shooting."

"Really?" Saguru seemed to muse over this revelation for a few moments. "Well, that would explain an awful lot. Like the fact that he killed. So the theory that we're operating off of is-?"

"That the real killer and the guard were working together," began Heiji, who didn't want Shinichi to speak another word in front of Hakuba if he could help it- he didn't want his friend saying or doing _anything_ that would provide fuel to further Hakuba Saguru's way-too-close-to-correct speculations. "They ran into Kid, who was casing the joint to heist a gem from that exhibit there that's moving in next week. The pair surprised Kid and knocked him out, then the murderer dressed up and shot the guard in order to frame Kid and to shut the guard up."

"Hmm. Very interesting speculation. Now what we need is proof to back it up," stated Saguru as he got up out of his chair. "You can take those stacks of materials with you; they're copies of copies, I already have them all. We can talk again when you've looked everything over." With that, he waved goodbye and walked out.

"Kudo," hissed Heiji in a low voice to his friend as he watched the sandy blonde's back dissappear into the hotel's lobby, "just be extremely careful of anything you do or say around Hakuba from now on."


	12. Chapter 12

:)

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**FOUNDER OF CROMARTY INC. PASSES AWAY AFTER LONG ILLNESS, LEAVES NOTHING BUT STATUES TO FAMILY**

**FAMILY OF THOMAS CROMARTY QUESTIONING HIS SANITY PRIVATELY, SAY CONFIDENTIAL SOURCES**

**STRANGE FIGURINES THOMAS CROMARTY'S ONLY BEQUEST TO SURVIVING RELATIVES**

Well, at least it had been easy enough to find more information on the history of the Cromarty family.

The family had been the source of the Buddha statue's loan to the museum for its 'Jade Through The Ages' exhibit, once Saguru had gone looking for data in older American newspapers that were cached on microfilm instead of more current papers. Of course, he'd found an article or two in British papers as well but the American papers definitely held the brunt of the collective data, and once he had begun digging he had rapidly realized why.

He had started his search by going about thirty years back, but quickly realized that if these statues dated back to 1928 as the stolen statue's plaque had indicated, then he should probably go dig in the newspapers from 1920 to 1930. Specifically, larger newspapers that would be more likely to have crime sections back then. He'd found the first of his articles almost immediately when he began perusing the New York Times from August of 1920- a front-page story that had a picture of a middle-aged plump, jolly-looking man in a suit at what looked like a grand opening event. The man was cutting a huge ribbon with a pair of clownishly large scissors, and it was described by the caption 'Cromarty Cuts The Ribbon On Another Plant' below the photo.

Thomas Cromarty had been your stereotypical all-American success story almost straight out of Hollywood Central Casting or a movie script. A boy born on the wrong side of the tracks (in an era when that term had quite the literal meaning) who had worked hard, scraped together money and put himself through college. He had then built a successful, multimillion-dollar shipping company with headquarters in Japan, Britain and America from the ground up using sheer determination, moxy and an amazing knack for business. During the process of building his empire, he'd somehow found the time to marry his college sweetheart, Lisa Daniels, and have two children with her over the next three years, a boy, Thomas Cromarty II, and a girl, Elaine.

From what Saguru could see things had been going along swimmingly for the multimillionare over the next thirty or so years- more ribbon cuttings, more amassing and enlargement of the family fortune and ever more expansion of his business- until Cromarty had learned in the mid 1920s at the age of roughly sixty that he had leukemia. And unfortunately for him, that was back in the era when cancer tended to be ugly, painful, and for the most part untreatable except by methods that tended to make the ailments and symptoms worse instead of better. In fact, it looked like Cromarty had just laid back and let the cancer run its course without a fight after learning that he had it, stating publicly that he wasn't going to put his body or his family through the torments.

The cancer had finally taken Thomas Cromarty a year and a half later, with him passing at his large estate in the remote woods somewhere in rural northeastern Connecticut. His family had steadfastly refused to reveal the precise location because they didn't want the media hounding them during Thomas's final days, and the media had actually respected thier request for privacy judging by how little was in the papers after Thomas had moved to the cabin. (This fact had elicited a derisive, knowing snicker from Saguru. No _way_ that the voracious beast known as the news media would be that polite and/or respectful these days.)

The problems had started when Thomas Cromarty's will was read the following week after his large funeral...

"Hey, Hakuba! Pay attention! I'm _talking_ to you over here!"

Saguru actually jumped up out of his seat a bit with a start, jolted out of his intense, thoughtful persual of the old microfilms by a certain very irritating tantei nearly bellowing in his ear. "What do you want?" he quickly snapped in reply while readjusting the microfilm he'd been so rudely interrupted during reading. He decided that he wasn't going to bother to hold his irritation in check as he looked up from his seat in annoyance. Couldn't this blithering idiot Hattori see that he was _focusing _right now?

"I said," replied Heiji, "that the kid and I might have found something."

_Yes...that 'kid' Edogawa Conan that Hattori works with sometimes- another matter for me to check into once we're done here at the library. _"What exactly did you find?"

Heiji narrowed his eyes at Saguru's doubting tone but kept his tone neutral. "A whole bunch of statues, that's what," he replied as he pointed his thumb at the desk back in the corner that he and 'Conan' were currently working at, buried in newspapers. "A collection of five of them that's going on display in a library in Osaka next week to be specific, loaned by a family that bought them off of guess who?"

"The Cromartys," cried Hakuba instantly, his irritation dissapating in the heat of the hunt as he quickly got up out of his seat and walked over to the table where Heiji and Conan had been digging through more recent papers.

"See? Heiji-niichan and I found this," grinned Conan as Saguru joined them at the table, patting a small notice about the exhibit that the library would be hosting. "Five statues- A buddha, an elephant, a lion, a clock, and a giraffe, all made of jade."

"Should be prime targets for our killer, eh?" inquired Heiji with a grin. "Guy can't seem to keep his hands off these little Buddahs..."

"Well, yes. That's obvious. The problem is going to be trying to convince the police to stake this out instead of pursuing Kaitou Kid."

"Eh, I think that Satou and Takagi, those two I talked with down at the station yesterday, will listen to us at least even if they don't stake anything out," nodded Heiji once he had thought it over for a few moments. "They're the two that figured out that it was someone else wearing Kid's suit at the time of the killing." _And that was without Kudo and I having to lead them down that path._

* * *

"You're very lucky. Exceedingly, amazingly lucky."

Kaito sure as hell didn't need Konsuke Jii to tell him that. Jii had said this very quietly, even over the phone and alone at his house across town. Jii had no way of knowing, though, that Aoko had long since left for her own house after making sure that Kaito was set up with painkillers, food and the remote control since his mom was going to be working late. Aoko had also had the presence of mind to place the cordless telephone by him, which he was incredibly grateful for once it had started ringing.

"I know that, Jii. No need to tell me that, trust me. I'm very aware of it." _Painfully aware..._

"Those tantei could just as easily have turned you in to the police as help try and clear your name like they're doing," Jii continued, causing Kaito to roll his eyes in irritation- but Kaito also knew that Jii was perfectly correct in his assessment. "What were you thinking, enlisting thier aid?" Jii continued in a demanding tone.

"It wasn't exactly my intent, believe me," grumbled Kaito before adjusting himself on the couch a bit and resettling down. "We've run into one of them before at some of my heists- the little one with glasses, remember him? I screwed up and admitted that I knew he was a detective as well as the one with the hat- I used 'detectives' when I was talking with them both." His brows furrowed as he realized that he'd never actually asked for thier help; they'd just _helped_.

"Careless," replied Jii. "That little slip of the tongue could have cost you very dearly. You need to be much more careful about things like that in the future if you're going to continue this life." Kaito could hear what sounded like Jii going into another room or moving. "What about the other one that's always on your tail- the blond half-British one who shows up alot and always tries to stop you?"

Kaito groaned aloud. He hadn't even given a thought yet to Hakuba Saguru and the possible havoc he could wreak, the tantei who seemed at times like he was getting dangerously close to uncovering Kuroba Kaito's secret life as Kaitou Kid. "Oh, wait," he muttered brightly as much to himself as Jii after remembering that Hakuba had been shuffled off to England for the week. "He's in England- nothing to worry about there, at least until he gets back."

"Just seems strange. I don't like it," continued Jii. "What do they have to gain by helping you? What made them think that you hadn't done it in the first place? It smells like a setup to me, if you really want my honest opinion."

"Jii-chan." Kaito finally let a spark of irritation through the flat tone. "I really think you're overthinking this. If this had been a setup, or they were turning me in to the police, don't you think that some cops would have been pounding on my door hours ago, when I first messed up and revealed that I was Kid?"

"So why are they helping you, then?"

"I...I don't know, really." Kaito became more confident as he continued. "But I do know this. If they didn't truly believe I was innocent, you can bet I'd be sitting in a jail cell right about now and they wouldn't be working so hard to help me."

"What do you mean, working so hard?"

"Well, apparently they had a meeting with someone this morning who found a similar case in England last year. They've been at the library all afternoon researching stuff about the old case apparently, trying to see if there's any connection before it closes."

"Hmph. Well, we'll need to decide what we're going to do about this situation once this mess is cleared up." With that, Jii hung up and Kaito's cellphone then started to ring as he was replacing the phone on the table.

"Hello?"

"Hey. Yeah, the cases look very similar. We're trying to find some more details but we have some good leads." _The kid, Conan..._

"Can I ask you a question?"

"What? Make it quick, Heiji-niichan will get mad if I don't get back in there and help in a hurry."

"Why are you both helping me? You especially?"

This was followed by one of the longest, most uncomfortable silences Kaito had ever been a part of. He had actually been beginning to wonder if thier call had gotten disconnected when the tiny tantei finally replied.

"Simple. Because Kaitou Kid has a saying, No One Gets Hurt- and I've seen enough to know that that's not a hollow phrase. The killing reeked of a setup to me from the very beginning."

Conan terminated the call before the thief could even begin to formulate a reply, leaving Kaito blinking and staring at his phone.


	13. Chapter 13

My sincerest, deepest gratitude goes out to those who are reviewing every chapter!

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"Well now, Kuroba, you don't seem very happy to see me here in class. Sorry if I've dissapointed you by coming back from my trip to England early."

This was stated by Hakuba Saguru in a neutral, calm tone as he continued to pore over the research on the Cromarty family statues that he had brought with him from the time yesterday at the library. He didn't even even bother to lift his eyes from the Xerox of the old paper he was currently studying while making the statement to his prankster classmate. Saguru had to admit to himself, however, that he was actually trying to suppress a snicker (of all things) at the moment, and had been doing so ever since he had seen the shocked, horrified look on Kaito's face when Saguru had entered the room and taken his usual seat. _I probably could have knocked Kuroba over with one of Watson's feathers after he saw me walk in..._

"But you were supposed to be gone to England for this coming week!" Kaito cried in reply before quickly realizing what he was doing and how bizarre his insistence must be appearing to everyone. He quickly reigned himself in while mentally chiding himself, fervently hoping that he hadn't already raised Hakuba's suspicions. This _was_ Hakuba_, _though_, _so Kaito knew that he was most likely totally out of luck already on that count. There was also no doubt in Kaito's mind that just the paniced look he'd let slip through his poker face briefly upon seeing the half-Brit enter thier classroom had probably been more than sufficient to set Hakuba Saguru's mental bloodhounds off and running after the scent.

"Yes, I was. Plans changed suddenly and I decided to come back early, that's all." Saguru followed this by shooting Kaito a look that he hoped would very clearly get across the fact that he did _not _want to discuss the topic of his being here in Japan instead of England any further. Saguru really and truly didn't want to dwell on what sort of punishment would be exacted once he checked out of the hotel and returned to his father's house. Just then, he heard his name paged over the P.A. system to come to the front office, so Saguru got up and headed in that direction, figuring it was probably something to do with his attendance and the fact that he wasn't supposed to be here but was.

Kaito was managing to maintain his well-practiced poker face through sheer discipline and desperation but internally, he was feeling like his guts had been placed on a high-speed rollercoaster that would never slow down or end. The very unwanted ride had begun after that smug detective had walked in like nothing was wrong. _Damn it, I already have enough problems without Hakuba being here and nosing around like he always does! Someone's framed me for a murder and not one but TWO detectives now know that I'm also Kaitou Kid! _His facial expression changed very slightly as he thought that over. _Although at least for the moment they're helping me instead of turning me in. I guess I just _have_ to trust them both right now, no choice really. And if we don't figure out what's going on pretty quick, more people will probably be hurt or even killed by whoever's after those stupid Buddha statues._

Wait a minute...what was this that Hakuba had been studying before he was called out? That picture on his desk he'd been looking at had what looked an awful lot like one of those Buddha statues that were causing so much havoc in it. Kaito grabbed a few of the papers off of the top of the stack sitting on the right of other boy's desk and started walking over to his own seat with them in hand so he chould look at them more closely. Or at least, that had been his initial plan of action until a bookbag whacked him soundly on the back of the head in mid-return trip to his desk, causing him to drop the papers before they scattered about the floor with a large fluttering 'whoosh' accompanying thier escape from his hands.

"Leave Hakuba-kun's papers alone! They're not yours, you thief!"

"Aoko, c'mon! It's not like he would have ever missed them or even realized that I had taken them if you hadn't of made me _drop them all over the floor, _so now I won't have time to look at them before he comies back," he growled in irritated reply to his friend before he went to hastily pick up the first of the scattered pieces of paper and found that it contained the name of the tiny bespectacled detective who was currently assisting him._ Edogawa Conan- Is that his real name? Is there a birth cerfiticate? Check when we're done. _was written in handwriting so neat and precise that it practically screamed Hakuba's name from the paper it was jotted down on.

Kaito nearly fell to the floor from shock as the implications of that last sentence fully hit him and processed. _Wait a minute...When WE'RE done?_

_We're working with someone who found a case a lot like this one that happened in England last year._

Why oh WHY hadn't his stupid, slow self made the connection to Hakuba immediately after Heiji had informed him of them working with someone else during thier conversation yesterday?

Only Hakuba would manage to somehow have this combination of resourcefulness, stubborness, intelligence (hey, Kaito had to give credit where it was due, however reluctantly) and luck. Not only had he somehow found out about current, local crime news in Japan while being in another country, but Hakuba had stumbled onto another strangely similar case in England as well. It was also a great explaination for why he'd returned from England early; Kaito knew from the far-too-many experiences he'd had with narrowly avoiding capture as Kaitou Kid that no one was more annoyingly, incredibly persistent than Hakuba when he made up his mind to go after someone or something.

"Find my research interesting, Kuroba?" asked Hakuba mildly from behind Kaito's right shoulder. Knowing that even trying to come up with an excuse would do him no good, Kaito just let out a deep, disgruntled sigh and continued picking up the papers before practically shoving them back at the highly irritating tantei. "My, my, aren't we irritable this morning- did something happen to you while I was gone?" he asked politely, only getting an angry glare from Kaito in return before the latter stalked back to his desk and sat down with a loud thud.

_If he really is Kaitou Kid like I suspect, then this weekend was probably not one of the better ones he's ever had. _Hakuba mulled this over amusedly before refocusing himself as he sat back down and began thumbing through the two stacks of papers that held his research material. One stack was much thicker than the other, partially due to Kuroba's attempted burglary and partially due to the fact that the second stack held what he had been able to find so far on Edogawa Conan. It was a suspiciously trim stack of information that raised all kinds of questions in Hakuba's mind, especially when you coupled the disparity of available information with how eerily _mature _the child seemed at times.

Hakuba had gotten the quite distinct impression, both back during the events of that stupid Koshien and while he was working with him currently, that Edogawa Conan's innocent, childlike behavior was a carefully constructed façade that he was deliberately presenting to the world. A mask he almost constantly wore that had cracked momentarily yesterday when Conan had stepped in to end the argument between himself and Hattori. Those cerulean eyes had not been filled with innocence at the time, but anger, and they had seemed nothing like the eyes of a six or seven year old child when he had spoken. In fact, it had felt an awful lot like it was someone either his or Hattori's ages sitting with them at the table at the time...

Then there was the matter of Hattori becoming so completely shut in and almost openly hostile after Saguru had decided to state his suspicions openly. _'Sorry. I have no idea what you're talking about'? Yeah right, Hattori. _Granted, the two of them certainly didn't have anything beyond a barely cordial acquaintanceship, but Saguru didn't think that he'd said or done anything to warrant such anger and, yes, panic (he hadn't missed the fear in Hattori's body language mingled in with that obvious anger, or the absolute, complete terror that had filled Conan's eyes for a moment before his child's mask had slipped back on) other than inquring about the boy.

"Leave him alone," came a firm-sounding voice from far to his left suddenl. This snapped Saguru out of his intent perusal of what little he'd been able to scrape together once the rest of the class had gone on thier break an hour later. Then the voice connected with its owner in Saguru's mind and he looked over at Kuroba Kaito, who was leveling a glare at him from his own desk while holding up the piece of paper he recalled scribbled some notes on various things he'd wanted to look into regarding Edogawa. "Everyone has a right to thier secrets," the other boy stated flatly before turning away and quickly terminating the conversation since other students were beginning to filter back into the class.

_Mmm. Maybe. But I'll find out what's going on with him, and then decide where to go from there with the information. The same with you, magician, once I can finally prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're also Kaitou Kid... _"Give that paper back, thank you," Saguru asked, Kaito responding to the request by sticking it into his desk and smirking. If thier sensei hadn't just chosen that moment to return to class Saguru would have walked over and become more insistent on it, but as it was all he could do was return Kuroba's glare with one of his own before greeting thier sensei and taking his seat.

Five minutes later, Saguru was somehow not surprised to have a paper airplane smack him soundly in the side of the head in mid-lecture, not even needing to look over and see Kuroba's barely suppressed smirk to know that he had been the messenger who had delivered it. With a sigh, he picked up the airplane that was now laying with its nose crumpled on the ground and unfolded it. It was, indeed, the paper he had scribbled his notes on regarding further research into that strangely adult-seeming child, but there was an addition at the bottom in what was most definitely not his handwriting.

_Don't exhaust yourself. And leave him alone._


	14. Chapter 14

Thanks to all my reviewers!

* * *

"Tell me again why we agreed to do this stakeout tonight?" inquired Satou of Takagi with a sleepy yawn. She covered the yawn with her hand before halfheartedly sipping at a now lukewarm cup of coffee that she decided was far too bitter after the first sip. _But I need every drop of caffeine, it's two in the morning and I've been up nearly eighteen hours..._

"Well, it was that friend of Conan's- Hattori Heiji the tantei from Osaka. He seemed pretty sure that the same guy who dressed up in Kid's suit and shot the guard will show up and try to take the Buddha statue that this museum has on loan right now." Takagi gave a sleepy glance at his partner sitting in the passenger seat and sipped from his own lidded Styrofoam cup after he replied. "I also checked up on Hattori a bit with a contact I have down in the Osaka PD and I was told that he's extremely reliable, which is a big part of why I agreed to at least check this out. Quit yawning by the way, don't you know that it's contagious?" he muttered ruefully before letting out a yawn himself. "Ugh, I wish there was some other store we could go to besides that store down the street. This coffee is like like acid-flavored mud with milk mixed into it."

"Better than no coffee at all, Takagi-kun, though I agree with you about the taste," grinned Satou through her grogginess before forcing herself to take another sip of the awful brew and suppressing a shudder once she was done. "So Hattori Heiji was friend of Conan's. Have you ever wondered about that boy, Edogawa Conan? I sometimes find myself wondering if he's even really a boy at all. He seems so much older than he is sometimes."

"Eh, every now and again I do wonder, but I figure it's maybe because he's around that other tantei who always seems to be at our murder scenes- Megure-keibu's friend Sleeping Kogoro. The boy must be used to deaths after being around that guy for so long, and I'm sure that his interest in being a detective springs from being around Kogoro as well." _I'll tell you who I really am in the afterlife... _Takagi had decided quite awhile ago to keep that conversation between Conan and himself that they'd had in the elevator that day while defusing the bomb strictly to himself, and to just be grateful that he was on their side for the time being.

"Maybe." Satou shrugged and stared out the windshield into the clear, somewhat chilly night that was harshly illuminated by the streetlight at the end of the alley they were parked in for purposes of surveilling the museum that housed the statue. "But I feel like there's something more to it than that, something I can't quite place my finger on..."

Just then, the conversation came to an abrupt halt as both of them spotted a rather large flash of white heading down the street in the general direction of the museum. "He's wearing Kid's outfit again," growled Takagi as they both leapt out of the unmarked patrol car, wide awake thanks to having seen their burglar heading towards the museum- just as Hattori had predicted.

_The kid and I think that this guy may be after these statues. The one in the library is part of a set of 16 that an American guy had made a long time ago that his relatives seemed to just kid of let scatter after his death. Hey, he's already killed at least once to get his hands on one, and there's another case in England that's really similar to this one..._

"Just be careful, remember that this isn't the real Kid and that this guy has killed before," muttered Takagi as he and Satou raced towards the museum. "He may wear Kid's costume but he definitely doesn't play by Kid's rules."

"Same to you- be careful," came the quiet reply as they split off to the left and right sides of the library begin their search for the false Kaitou Kid- a search that would hopefully end in his apprehension and arrest.

"On the roof!" Takagi suddenly heard Satou cry out a few moments later, surprised and a little angry at her so casually giving away her position. He then looked up to see the white-clad, caped figure running across the roof of the library. He quickly spotted a downed fire escape that the wanna-be Kid must have used to try and climb up and decided to follow suit, not caring if he made a lot of noise going up since the thief already knew that there was at least one person there.

"FREEZE!" he shouted, drawing his service-issue pistol without hesitation and aiming it at the white-clad figure's back. The too-tight suit was really straining at its seams as the person slowly lifted their hands above their head. _If it's possible, that suit seems even tighter than it did when we looked at it on the video... _"Now turn around and face me. Very, very slowly, and keep those hands way above your head while you're doing it."

"Can't we talk about this? I was just out on a pleasant evening stroll-" asked the impersonator as he slowly turned around with his hands up exactly as Takagi had requested.

"Mm-hmm. I'm sure you were, Kaitou Kid" replied Takagi, not wanting to let the guy know that he knew that there was no way that this overweight clod was the suave, slippery International Criminal 1412. "Satou, I have him over here," he called while never removing his gun or eyes from the bloated white suit. He heard his partner's footsteps cautiously approaching a few moments later, her own gun drawn and aimed squarely at the criminal as she circled around and flanked the would-be burglar's left rear side at a distance.

"Alright. Get down on your knees, nice and easy now," snapped Satou as the thief slowly got to his knees before she carefully approached him and placed the handcuffs on him.

It was just about at this time that it hit Takagi that this was way _too _easy. Granted, the guy was most definitely not the Magician of the Moonlight, but still. It was almost as if...as if...

"Shit!" he cried aloud in the midst of a sudden epiphany as Satou helped thier now-handcuffed suspect to his feet with a confused look on her face, not used to hearing her partner actually curse aloud like that. "Bring him with us, but we need to get inside as soon as possible!"

"Why? We caught him." _Please don't tell me he's going delirious from lack of sleep..._

"Because we were _meant _to catch this guy! I thought that suit looked too tight! He was a distraction!" Takagi yelled, angry with himself for not realizing it sooner as he waved for Satou to follow him down the fire escape. Satou tried her hardest to comply as quickly as possible with a handcuffed thief in front of her deliberately dragging his feet just enough so that he wouldn't get in trouble with the woman currently holding a gun to his back.

* * *

"I have something that belongs to you."

Kaito looked over at Heiji in puzzlement, not quite sure what the Osakan tantei meant. The three had decided to meet up a Jii's house after the announcement that Kaitou Kid had finally at long last been caught- because, of course, the three knew that that was a load of hooey.

"Hakuba knew that it was wrong, too," commented Kaito with a pointed glance over at Shinichi after they had finished discussing the events of last night. "He's trying to investigate you by the way- I found your name and some questions written under it on one of his stacks of paper today. I told him to lay off but I know him- It probably went in one ear and right out the other."

_Unfortunately, that's probably all too true. I know how a tantei can be better than almost anyone, after all. Stubborn as hell, especially when you're told to stay away from something... _This had been the main reason that Shinichi had decided to not flat out tell the other tantei to back off. He had sensed that Saguru would be the sort to only dig in his heels further when told to move. Of course, he was unaware of Heiji's attempted interference, as well as Kaito's, so he didn't know that Hakuba Saguru was in the midst of a rather determined session of trying to track him down. "Well, he should be worried about the killer, not me," Shinichi finally sighed as he slumped down into the couch.

"So, what did you have for me?" Kaito inquired, finally remembering Heiji's earlier statement. Heiji reached over the side of the couch and revealed a large evidence bag that he'd brought with him. "It's lucky I'm my old man's son- they actually left me in the evidence room just long enough so that this could go missing," he said with a grin as he tossed the bag to Kid. "I didn't see any reason for them to hang onto it. Here ya go." Kaito let out a gasp as he opened the bag.

"My-my outfit," a wide, genuine smile spreading across his face as he lifted out the wrinkled, dirty white suit jacket. "Needs cleaning badly, though...and some stitching up. Good grief, the guy who stole this from me must have used a shoehorn to get into it, look at all these popped seams!" he groused angrily as he investigated the holes in the armpits and very-close-to-ripped seat of the pants once he had inspected those as well.

"Well, that's the thing. We really don't think that the guy they caught last night was the actual killer," explained Heiji. "The cops are keeping something secret about last night, something they weren't even willing to tell the kid and I. But we can make an educated guess."

"We think that they guy they arrested last night wearing that suit was a decoy- someone the real thief and murderer hired to distract the cops." Cupping his head in his hand, Shinichi added "Of course, that begs the question how he knew that there was going to be a stakeout. It was kind of a last-minute decision on the police's part to go along with it."

"Maybe he has a police band radio?" offered Kaito as he began digging around and eventually extracted a sewing kit from a zipper compartment in his backpack. "I have one in my secret room at my house, but decided that using was like cheating so I haven't used it in months," he continued as he began repairing the outfit with expert hands.

"You sew?" asked both tantei simultaneously.

"Well, not really, but I had to learn to fix my suit up- and how to clean it properly too, in case Mom isn't around to do it for me. Kind of difficult to take this outfit to a cleaner or a tailor's after all, since it's on the news a lot" Kaito replied with a smirk before refocusing on patching up the outfit.

"What questions did he have written down about me?" asked Shinichi suddenly a few minutes later. "I need to know what to distract him with."


	15. Chapter 15

:)

* * *

"So not ONLY did we not catch the real robber last night, but the damn suit we took from him is gone from the evidence room as well?" demanded Megure angrily, the keibu most definitely feeling the beginnings of a very nasty headache coming on.

He practically fell down into his plush seat as he emitted an exhausted sigh. Last night had quickly gone from a celebration of catching Kaitou Kid, the notoriously slippery thief-cum-currently wanted murderer, into a complete and total disaster that Megure's superiors were now breathing down his neck for- and rather harshly at that.

"I need _answers _and I need them yesterday," Megure muttered this as Satou and Takagi looked down at the floor. "I have half of upstairs out for either my or Kid's blood thanks to this fiasco and the other half trying to scramble around and cover their asses because of it," 'upstairs' being a rather disdainful way of referring to the plush administrative offices that the top police officials worked in.

"Well, keibu, what happened was that while we were on the stakeout we saw the guy heading towards the museum, and-"

"You chased him up onto the roof and arrested him, then realized that something was off, I know that much already, Takagi," nodded Megure as he shook his head and scribbled notes down. "But by the time you realized what was really going on, the thief had already come and gone and the Buddha statue wound up stolen anyhow. At least we've managed to keep that out of the media's hands so far because of that replacement we had made. It would be a field day otherwise." Megure leaned back in his seat before adding "This whole thing seems to only further point at Kid's guilt, too. How did the guy get his hands on that suit if it wasn't from Kid himself?"

"Well, do you remember that theory that Takagi-kun and I-?"

"Yeah, his suit looked tight on camera so you're operating off of the theory that someone else was wearing that suit when the guard got shot. That they knocked Kid out and took it off of him." Megure continued to write down notes. "Ever consider that Kid set up that whole thing just to make us think that? That he maybe tucked some padding in somewhere to make it seem like the suit was tight? This is _Kaitou Kid, _master of disguise. He may have done that just to mess with us, who knows?"

"But, keibu, that whole heist back at the museum was such a departure from his normal M.O.-" _Why won't he listen to Takagi-kun and I?  
_

"Megure, they're right. Kaitou Kid may do some stupid things, and mock us at times in the process of doing those things, but he hadn't ever killed and he won't ever kill. I've said it before, and I'll say it again until it sinks in. The only thing that Kaitou Kid would never steal is a life."

"Nakamori-keibu, what are you doing here?" inquired Takagi and Satou simultaneously as the other keibu walked into Megure's office.

"I heard about what happened last night," the other keibu offered with a laugh by way of explanation as he took one of the empty seats in Megure's office and made himself comfortable. "I take it that you guys already know that there's no way in _hell_ that idiot you have back there in your jail is Kaitou Kid," he continued as he expertly lit a cigarette. "Can't even imitate voices worth a damn, much less do any magic tricks." With a smirk that wouldn't have been out of place on Kid's face during the midst of a heist he added "And besides, that ugly mug of his is no latex mask- I checked. There may be a bruise on his cheek for a few days, sorry about that if if gets your folks in trouble with the higher ups." He exhaled after taking the first puff before asking "So what was the guy's story when you picked him up? I can't _wait_ to hear this one, I have a feeling it'll entertain me."

"I would appreciate it if you wouldn't smoke in my office," replied Megure with a pointed glance at the cigarette before Nakamori nodded and put it out in a half-empty coffee cup of water on Megure's desk. Megure began after the other keibu finished disposing of the smoke. "He claims that he's writing a biography of Kid in his spare time and that someone left him the suit in a bag on his front doorstep late last night with a note that said it was 'a gift for such a huge fan.' When asked why on Earth Kid would possibly ever give him the suit- and what possessed him to squeeze into the thing and crawl along rooftops, he replied-"

"He just wanted to 'see what it was like being Kid!' came a shouted yell from the next room in a tone full of mirth, which was followed by an uproarious burst of laughter from the men and women working in that room. "Can you believe that? The idiot went and got himself arrested because he was stupid enough to dress up in a suit that Kid was dumb enough to leave him!" The second round of peals of laughter caused all four in the room to get up and go see what was going on.

* * *

"Why do I have this funny feeling that I'm really, _really _not going to like participating in whatever you two have been so busy planning over there?" Kaito asked mildly as he continued the repair of his poor now-bedraggled costume's pants, Heiji and Shinichi both looking at him from the couch across the way with grins that Kaito knew meant trouble aimed at the direction of those grins- namely him.

"Well, Conan and I were just discussin' ways to get Hakuba off of his tail and back on the murderer's, where that idiot _should_ be focused right now," explained Heiji in an equally casual tone. "You prolly know him way better than us, let's see if your train of thought goes along the same track. What would you say are the things that interest Hakuba most? 'Sides mysteries, that is. That's a given since he's a tantei like Conan and I." _Jeez, I have to be careful, I very nearly used Kudo's name just then..._

"Hmm. Well, he likes tea, and I can tell you from experience that he'll come down hard on you if you mess with his tea. And of course there's his big obsession with catching Kaitou Kid-" Kaito nearly dropped the needle he was using as his eyes narrowed when he realized where this conversation was very likely going. _Have they both gone totally nuts? _"Nope, no. No way. Not doing it," he muttered firmly to the pair as he resumed his work, grateful that he hadn't managed to poke himself.

"Not doing what?" inquired Shinichi in an innocence-filled tone- a tone that merely caused his near-twin to give him a glare.

"Whatever it is you two have planned for Kaitou Kid to distract Hakuba. I know those grins, I've had one like that plastered on my own face way too many times to count." Breaking his concentration and sewing to look across the room, he added "Besides, have you forgotten? Kaitou Kid is wanted for _murder_ right now so if I show up in this suit I'm hosed, and I know the police won't give up nearly as easily as they normally do because of that. I'm also sure that Nakamori-keibu has been over to the Tokyo station by now and laughed at whoever my impostor hired to wear that suit and run around."

"What makes you think that something like that happened? The killer hiring that guy to wear your suit?"

"Easy. He was using one of the easiest, simplest and most successful tactics that there is- distraction," replied Kaito as he resumed his sewing with a shrug. "All he had to do was find a willing participant and convince them to run around in the general vicinity of the museum. Then while the cops who have the place staked out are busy chasing the person in the white Kid suit, the real guy sneaks into the museum and makes off with the statue easy as pie."

"Well, that might explain why they're being so closemouthed about last night," replied Heiji as he gave a glance to Shinichi. "Maybe something like that did happen, eh? Now that he mentions it, I overheard them saying something about making sure that a replacement was ordered. And when I asked what they meant, they got real quiet really quickly. That was right before I got the chance to, ehh, return the suit to its proper owner."

"Maybe they ordered a fake statue so that no one will realize the real thing's gone missing," offered Kaito as he began to put away his sewing kit. "Of course, I'm sure the owners have been notified that it was taken, but I find the fact that they haven't announced that they guy they arrested last night is a fake or that the stature got stolen both very interesting."

"Hey, you said you have a police-band radio, right? Let's check it out," offered Shinichi. "Unless you don't want to go to your house right now that is." _Maybe if we listen to what the police are talking about we can figure out what exactly happened last night and if Kuroba is right._

"I'd be more than happy to go to my house if Aoko and Mom weren't there busy baking for some school fundraiser we're having next week," the thief replied as he began to prepare his outfit for a very thorough washing. "Why do you think I came here in the first place?"

"So," grinned Heiji, "About that plan of ours..."

"I already told you. No, no and no again. I'm not going to risk getting arrested because Hakuba's been set on Kudo's scent somehow!" This was followed by the thief immediately covering his mouth as he realized that he'd uttered the wrong name out loud. _I didn't intend for them to know that I know who 'Conan' really is, not yet at least..._

"How the _hell_?" Heiji finally managed to spit out after fully twenty seconds of stunned silence and terror-filled looks from the other pair, Shinichi also having been unable to control himself from blanching a shade of near-white for a few moments when his true name had first come out of Kaito's mouth.

"Well, once you two found me out, I had initially decided to keep what I know to myself until a better time, but I guess that's out the window now." Kaito explained wearily as the other two glared at him so intensely that it made his skin crawl. "I got curious about whether you were hiding something when you first showed up at one of my heists to be honest, a strangely adult-seeming boy that tried to stop me and called himself a tantei. And I always make a point to know as much as possible about opponents that may present an actual challenge to me, so I decided to do some research. But there was next to nothing on Edogawa Conan when I went looking, and that made me wonder even more." Kaito cleared his throat. "Then I realized how much you looked like me as a kid- minus those glasses of course. I could tell that the glasses didn't have a prescription in them when we first met at that first heist of mine you tried to stop, and that got me wondering. A kid who looked just like me at that age that needed to hide his face behind fake glasses that I could find hardly any information on?

"As I was thinking about that, I remembered a tantei who had looked almost exactly like me that chased me for a bit with some success and then suddenly vanished off the face of the Earth about a year and a half ago," Kaito continued as Shinichi continued to eye him with a wary, horror-filled expression. "Kudo Shinichi, who along with Hakuba Saguru was one of the tanteis to come closest to actually catching me before he so mysteriously vanished." As his eyes continued to slide back and forth between the two friends, Kaito decided to tell them everything, since he knew that if he was in a position like this that he would want a similar amount of honesty- and besides, the tanteis had told him precisely how they'd arrived at thier conclusion as well. "Then I found out that Edogawa Conan first got enrolled at his elementary school about a year and a half ago, and that the Kudo mansion had been vacant from about the same time frame until a tenant moved in a few months ago. I don't know how you got in that small body, but I've known who you really are for several months. Of course, that was only because I had some idea of where to begin looking," Kaito finally finished.

"You had better not even _think_ about telling anyone-" snapped Heiji, but Kaito waved the Osakan off.

"Hey. Are you forgetting who I am? _I_ of all people know that people have a right to secrets. I've never said anything about it until now to you two, and I didn't plan to ever say anything." He turned to Shinichi. "I can understand if you're not willing to answer this, but what the heck happened to you that made you a kid again like that?"

"Well," Shinichi replied firmly after realizing that there was nothing left to lose, "it all started because of two men dressed from head to toe in black that were suspects in a murder I was solving..."


	16. Chapter 16

SO glad I'm redoing this...bye-bye run-on sentences!

* * *

"This plan is absolutely _insane_. I can't _believe_ that you've convinced me to go along with this, Ku-id," snapped Shinichi darkly through the tight black nylon mask currently covering his nose and the lower half of his face. He was also desperately trying to hold onto his current position on the shoulders of a very rapidly moving Kuroba Kaito, Shinichi pulling the other boy's hair at times unintentionally when Kaito made a particularly hard turn or a less than graceful landing after a leap due to the wildly swinging extra weight currently on his shoulders. _It's a good thing I don't actually need the glasses I wear- they probably would have fallen off by now at this rate. _

They were currently headed at this rather rapid, running pace towards their current objective using the rooftops in the area to help avoid observation. Thier target was a secure storage facility where another of the statues was being held, the strange alliance having stumbled onto that information thanks to a television documentary on the robbery/killing that had aired earlier in the day. _Need to be more careful of that, can't get in the habit of calling him by his name..._Now Shinichi had a better understanding of Hattori's occasional near slip-ups with his own pseudonym; keeping two names for the same person straight was harder than it seemed after all.

The colored contacts Kaito had found for him to wear during this heist were causing Shinichi's eyes to water slightly as well, though thankfully they didn't seem to be actually obstructing his vision. (Shinichi hadn't dared to or even _wanted_ to ask where Kaito managed to get a hold of a pair of child-sized cosmetic brown contact lenses, and it was actually probably better that he didn't ever know.) On top of that, the small light blonde boy's style wig that Kaito had put in place over Shinichi's hair with expert, practiced hands was also slightly itchy where the wig cap didn't quite cover his scalp. _'You'll get used to it'? Easy for you to say since you wear this stuff almost all the time, Kuroba. _The worst part for Shinichi was that he couldn't itch his head at all because he'd likely fall off the thief's shoulders if he let go with either of his hands. It was like near-torture, but torture he'd somewhat reluctantly agreed to once the full plan of attack had been explained.

_Well, what _else_ can we do about this whole thing, really? _Shinchi had resigned himself to the situation awhile ago. _It's not like he can just put on his Kid uniform, march into police headquarters, proclaim his innocence and try and explain things. He'd be thrown in prison immediately and without question. He also can't pull any heists at all as Kaitou Kid until his name is cleared for this murder- this heist included, thanks to how recognizable his uniform is and how much it stands out at night. I suppose that 'borrowing' this statue for an examination _is_ the quickest way to try and figure out just what's going on with these things, although I don't know how I feel about the legalities involved here..._

What Shinichi _did _know for a fact was that his strong, deeply ingrained senses of both rightness and justice, along with his desire to discover the truth, wouldn't let him rest until the real thief and murderer was arrested and Kaitou Kid's name very publicly cleared after that arrest- at least cleared as that of a murderer. And well, if that meant having Kid guide him through a heist or two or even aiding and abetting the master thief on occasion while they worked towards the truth in this increasingly strange case...so be it. _Him being a thief in the first place is a whole other subject, one that we're going to have a chat about after this whole mess is cleared up..._

The thief had somehow managed to turn the tables on Heiji and himself after the two had explained their original plan to have Kaitou Kid distract the very nosy Hakuba Saguru through setting up a fake heist. Kaito had very quickly pointed out that there was an _actual _heist that was probably more important and useful- one that they could use to get Hakuba's concentration back where it belonged if the heist was successful, thanks to the information it would likely provide. _Well, Jii-chan and I went and cased that place where the statue they mentioned on the news is being stored earlier today. Granted we don't have much prep time at all and their security setup is fairly well done, but there's a sealed skylight window up on the northwest corner of their roof that's always unguarded, probably due to its very small size. No adult could ever squeeze in that thing, but that light's juuuuuuuuuust about right for a small kid to crawl through. _Shinichi had immediately recognized the smirk following that statement after Kaito had turned to him as one that meant nothing but trouble. _I'd feel too guilty about asking an _actual _kid to do this, but I think you're a special exception- right, tantei-kun?_

"How _else_ are we going to get to the bottom of what's going on with these things quickly enough to prevent more possible deaths? At least we know exactly where this statue is and that it hasn't been stolen yet. And we're not _stealing_ it, we're just _borrowing_ it for a few days for research purposes and then returning it, get it right!" replied Kaito airily through huffed breaths as they continued their approach to the facility. His deep green eyes provided via colored contacts were twinkling mischievously as a trademark Kaitou Kid grin began a slow creep from the center of his mouth outwards but didn't show due to Kaito's own black mask stretched across his face. "I'm just hoping we can beat this other jerk to the punch this time," he continued as he made one of the final leaps, the one that would place them on a rooftop that was directly across from the roof of their target facility itself. "I don't like that people are even _thinking_ that I killed someone. This bastard is single-handedly ruining my reputation and I don't intend to let that continue." The last sentence was said in a serious, cold tone that made Shinichi wonder if there wasn't something more laying behind it besides the inconvenience that Kaito was currently enduring.

"You two almost ready and in position to do this thing?" came Heiji's voice faintly a few seconds later through the 2-way radio that Shinichi was currently carrying strapped onto his waist. "Konsuke-ojisan and I can't keep these guards distracted forever ya know, and they seem to be catchin' on that it's just fireworks." This referred to the hastily decided upon method that was currently being employed to prevent the guards from returning to their posts, namely setting off small fireworks or firecrackers at five-minute intervals at very random locations all around the vicinity of the storage center and causing the guards to go after people shooting guns that weren't really there.

"We're making the last jump now," replied Shinichi with a press of the button before letting go and hanging on firmly as Kaito ran, then made the final leap that placed them onto the roof that had been their quest all along.

"Here we are," said Kaito cheerfully as he took Shinichi down off of his shoulders. "I may carry you around in a backpack next time if there _is_ a next time- my scalp can't possibly take another round of that abuse," the thief groaned in mock hurt as he rubbed his head very thoroughly while Shinichi gave him a dark glower.

"Very funny," Shinichi snorted -_like HELL you'll ever be stuffing me into a damn backpack!_- before beginning to look around the roof and spying what he figured was the skylight that Kaito had been referring to. "Is that it?" he inquired while raising his hand and pointing at the bump in the roof.

"That would be the one," replied Kaito in a chipper tone as he walked over to the skylight and began pulling out several small tools from his belt, ready to slowly unstick the skylight. "Jii and I already checked, they don't even have this light wired into the security system judging by the plans we 'borrowed' from their internal security website. Not too smart. Of course, neither was using plain old Scotch tape to seal this light up," he chuckled as he pulled out a small Exacto knife and sliced through the tape quickly. "I suppose I can consider this as providing them some free lessons in securing their building properly. Now to open this thing up and get you in, these things can be difficult sometimes depending on the type of latch configuration..."

"Guys, we have company. And I _don't_ mean the guards over here tailing Hattori and I right now," came Jii's voice firmly from Kaito's own radio, tension and fear seeping through in his tone. "It looks like our real thief has decided to make his move on this statue tonight too- probably saw the same report we did. We just found three of the patrolman unconscious over here in a heap, and I can guarantee you that it _wasn't_ us that did that to them."

"Shit! We have to hurry then! Thanks Jii," replied Kaito, quickly removing his hand from the reply button before he began furiously working at the skylight, not caring if he did any damage or made any noise now. He finally managed to thread a string through and grab the latch that was on the other side and swing the skylight open after five stress-filled minutes. "Alright, there we go. I'll lower you down real slowly, you want to go to the left then make the first two rights," Kaito muttered as he pulled out the rigging to lower Shinichi down with. "That second right will put you in front of the room, that's when the stuff I put in your pouch will come in handy." This sentence was finished as Shinichi finished putting the rigging on and after making sure that Kaito had the other end of the rope firmly in hand, Shinichi slowly climbed down and began attempting to squeeze through the now-opened skylight.

_Jeez, what a tight fit...No wonder he said you'd need a kid for this...well, a kid-sized body at least. _Shinichi finally managed to fully extricate himself from the light after a few moments of effort, even managing to keep the wig relatively in place in the process, then finding himself suspended about ten feet above the ground with the only thing keeping him afloat the effort of the thief on the other end. _You know, if I had a time machine and went back to tell myself that I'd be doing all this crazy stuff like breaking and entering and that I'd actually be _working_ with _Kaitou Kid_ of all people to solve some murders, I would probably call myself crazy and not believe me... _Shinichi then realized that sizing up the territory down below before he gave Kaito the signal to lower him would probably be a really good idea.

"Let me down, slowly," came Shinichi's voice through the two-way radio after about twenty seconds of silence from everyone. "I think I just saw our thief go by. A completely unarmed, beltless guard wearing an untucked uniform shirt, uniform pants that look at least two sizes too big and dirty tennis shoes just headed right towards the statue's room. I brought my knockout dart luckily, I hope I get to use it."

"Alright," replied Kaito as he slowly began lowing the shrunken tantei down, praising himself mentally for having remembered to bring gloves to avoid rope burn. "Just tell me if you need me to stop or slow down. And be careful, even if you look like a kid the guy probably won't hesitate to shoot if you get in his way."

"Yeah, I know. Keep going, speed it up a bit, I don't want that guy beating us to the statue. I'm about five feet from the ground now."

Suddenly, the rope went completely taut for a moment, then there was a lot of slack- _too _much slack, Kaito realized with a pang of panic after a couple of moments.

"You OK in there? It felt like you just jumped out of the harness" he finally asked into the radio, willing to risk the contact to try and see if Kudo was alright.

Silence was the only reply.


	17. Chapter 17

Reviews make me smile.

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"Sorry if I worried you," came Shinichi's somewhat rushed, hissed reply through the radio after a few increasingly tense, panicked moments of silence had passed between the group. "I'm fine, just had to dust myself off. This _blonde_ hair got in my way after I jumped down, that's all."

"Umm, okay" muttered Kaito, very relieved that the guy (Boy? Guy? Eh, whatever) he had come to consider a friend was alright, but at the same time wondering why Kudo had put such a strange emphasis on the color of the wig he was currently wearing. "So how close are you to the room? Don't tell me that you've damaged the supplies in your pack when you dropped out of the harness or something like that! That stuff is expensive and kind of explosive to boot."

"No, everything is fine here. I'm watching the area like a _hawk_ to make sure that no guards are coming and that the coast is clear."

Kaito cocked an eyebrow; there was that weird emphasis again! _Wait just a doggone minute...blonde...hawk...aww,_ please _don't tell me he's referring to who I think he is._ The thief shut his eyes and rubbed his temples lightly with his free hand, accompanying the gesture with a sigh before pressing the button and responding. "I assume there's, eh, some other unannounced company down there that doesn't really _suit_ our plans?" Kaito figured if someone else (read: a certain constant-freaking-thorn-in-his-side blonde meitantei) either had the radio in hand or was listening to it while Kudo was talking, they'd assume Kaito was referring to the other burglar who was currently attempting the exact same theft.

"Exactly," Shinichi instantly replied, his tone full of happiness since the clever master thief had picked up on his clues and figured out what -or rather, who- he'd been referring to. _Yes, Kudo, I got the hint._ Kaito rolled his eyes. He wasn't stupid, had Kudo thought he wouldn't figure it out? This was followed by a frustrated narrowing of eyes at the thought of the half-Brit irritant shoving his ego-filled way into the place. _Dammit Hakuba! Why tonight of all times do you, that stupid bird Watson and that really ugly suit you like to wear have to show up to this particular building?_ Kaito made a face. _Eh, he probably also figured that the real killer and burglar would go after the statue, and they did show up exactly like we thought. _

_But I wonder, why is Kudo not just saying his name since I know he knows Hakuba and they were even working together with him on this same case? Hakuba's probably stripped his disguise off by now and knows he's working with me. _His eyes widened slightly as he realized that Kudo was probably trying to not let Hakuba know who precisely was on the other end of the radio; this was followed by him shaking his head sadly. He appreciated the effort, but Kaito knew it was more than likely fruitless thanks to the fact that Kudo had been in a disguise, albeit not nearly as elaborate of one as the thief normally prepared. Hakuba would smell Kid's involvement immediately. _Hang in there, Kudo. Hakuba's really annoying, but he won't kill you. Arrest you maybe, or bore you to death perhaps..._

"Radio silence from here on out, we'll meet at B." With that highly nonspecific statement- no need to name off the number of people or give any of those sort of details out after all- Kaito snapped off his two-way. He then began racing towards the large stand of trees they'd chosen as one of four possible regathering spots in case something had gone wrong- like Hakuba Saguru showing up and poking his arrogant nose in where it didn't belong.

* * *

"So." Saguru began evenly as he gently grabbed Shinichi and placed him onto a table once the blonde wig and wig cap had been softly yanked off of Shinichi's head and tossed aside. "Please _do_ tell me, Edogawa Conan, when you and that idiot mentor of yours, Hattori, were going to get around to telling me that in addition to myself you're _also_ working with _Kaitou Kid_ to solve this series of robbery cases and the murders involved?" Both Saguru's eyes and tone had filled with ice and venom as the question was asked, not that Shinichi could blame the other meitantei for his current anger. He had desperately tried to communicate that Hakuba was here without using the other boy's name because of the disguise Shinichi had been wearing. He had been hoping to play dumb and buy a few minutes for the others before the disguise got taken off, and luckily it seemed like Kaito had picked up on his coded message quickly.

"But it wasn't Kaitou Kid-" he began in as innocent an whiny a tone as Shinichi could stand to muster, still trying to play for time as best he could.

"Oh, don't start up with that. Don't try and lie to me, even if Hattori or Kid told you to." Saguru glared and emitted a derisive snort as he pointed to the wig and cap that were laying on the ground to their left. "That _thing_ over there on the ground and those colored contacts of yours have that thief's style written all over the both of them." He turned around and walked back over to the area in front of the door leading to the room containing the statue, then turned slightly and looked (OK, more like glared) back at Shinichi over his shoulder. "I had a funny feeling after seeing that report on television earlier that either Kid would try and take the statue so he could see what was going on with it that was worth framing him for murder over, or the real culprit would show up and try to steal it. Looks like _both_ of my assumptions were correct." He allowed himself the ghost of a smile. "What a mess."

"Don't you want to help Kaitou Kid? You contacted Ha-eji-niichan and asked him to meet with you. You're the one who-"

"What I _want_," Saguru snapped, "is the truth. Isn't that the very highest calling of a detective? To find the truth?" He then slowly began approaching the table where Shinichi was sitting with folded arms and a cross expression. "And I mean the truth about more than just the robbery cases" he added harshly, giving Shinichi a knowing, pointed look that made the tiny meitantei break into a sweat instantly.

_Oh, crap...how am I going to get out of this one? _Shinichi was just beginning to try and figure out how to even begin wriggling out of this rather dire situation when a rather loud boom echoed from the end of the hallway that Shinichi instantly recognized as a gunshot. Before he could fully finish processing what had just happened- _A GUNSHOT?_- he suddenly saw Hakuba move quickly in front of him, then felt himself lifted up off the table as flecks of something warm lightly washed over his face. This was moments before Shinichi was tucked firmly into the one-armed grip of the other boy, who was currently running like hell with a very pained expression on his face while looking back over his shoulder. _Wait...this smell...it's blood! But I don't feel anything... _Shinichi's eyes widened as he realized that that was due to Hakuba quite literally having taken a bullet for him; the other boy's Inverness coat was slightly tattered on one side at about the middle of the left forearm and there was definitely blood now dripping down onto the white tile floor from that same arm, which was now dangling limply at Hakuba's side.

"Apparently someone doesn't care too badly _who_ gets hurt over the things," hissed Saguru quietly through his arm screaming at him in pain as he tried to find another exit that didn't take them directly past a gun-wielding criminal who had already fired at least once. "He was aiming right for you, you realize. Luckily the light at the end of the hallway caught the muzzle of his gun just in time." He looked down at Shinichi and winced before asking "Where's that B place at, dammit? They went to radio silence. I know that idiot Hattori and Kid both have to be there, at a minimum. We all need to get out of here now!"

"I-it's a stand of pine trees about five yards to the back. Outside." Shinichi had barely heard the question; he was still trying to come to grips with the fact that he had damn near had a bullet rip through him. That wasn't helped by the fact that as bad as Hakuba's wound currently was, superimposing that same wound and damage on a seven-year-old body instead of a seventeen-year-old arm was no laughing matter. It definitely caused Shinichi to whiten a little at the mental image of what could have been.

"Wonderful. A place that we still have to get to," growled Hakuba through clenched teeth. The wounded arm had gone from merely throbbing to feeling like it was on searing fire, and he really wasn't sure how long his lone good arm could keep holding the strange boy; it was beginning to shake slightly from the exertion of the solo effort even if he didn't weigh that much. "Wait, what's that?" He had just spied his hawk, Watson, madly circling up the hallway slightly from them. She apparently had the intelligence to not screech or otherwise make noise at the moment, for which Saguru was greatly relieved and thankful.

"Hey, let me up on your shoulders," Shinichi said in a somewhat demanding tone. "I can feel your arm shaking from carrying me, and I think that's an emergency exit up there-look, there's a ladder hanging down partway from it."

Saguru tried to help Shinichi onto his shoulders as best he could with one good, shaking arm and Shinichi managed to scramble up onto his shoulders after a few frantic moments. With Saguru providing the boost to his height, Shinichi was just able to reach up and yank down the ladder. "Let's get out of here!" he yelled, running the rest of the way up the ladder and slamming the exit open. Watson quickly followed, then finally Saguru, who slammed the lid back down firmly. "Good riddance to that place." He then stood up while wobbling slightly, gently cradled his shot forearm and added "Now to figure out where the ladder down is..."

"Hey, who's that up there? We heard a gunshot in there!" Heiji was calling up from somewhere down below them on the ground.

"Is it really smart to go running around and yelling like that after you've just heard _gunshots_, Hattori?" asked Saguru quietly but imperiously as he and Conan made their way down the ladder they'd finally found leading down from the roof, the half-Brit clutching the hurt arm and wincing after they'd finished coming down. Watson perched on Conan's shoulder instead of Saguru's and settled herself in, seeming to realize that her master was hurt.

"What the hell happened to your arm?" asked Heiji after he walked over; Jii and Kaito had decided to hide themselves back at the original meeting point they were supposed to go to.

"And you call yourself a tantei." Hakuba just shook his head and said this in a somewhat amused tone before Heiji's eyes grew wide with realization.

"Wait a minute, that was aimed at you?"

"Mmm, no." Hakuba glanced down at Shinichi, who had an almost dozing Watson still perched on his shoulder. "And now if you'll be so kind as to summon Kid, who I am sure has at least a medium-sized motor vehicle of some persuasion since he carried you all here. I'm afraid this wound is going to require some medical attention."

Heiji dashed back off towards the bushes, and once he'd fully vanished Hakuba very gingerly took off his coat. "Would you mind holding this for me? Easier to try and do some pretreatment on the way without wearing it."

"Alright." After all, it was the bare minimum that Shinichi could do for the guy who had at a minimum saved him from some serious injury. _It's just too bad that the robber is going to get the statue...Damn it, all this for nothing!_ After Saguru placed the coat into his hands, Shinichi began folding it up for easier transport and heard something hard hit the ground. _Something must have fallen out of one of the pockets_, he realized as he began to paw around at the ground. Watson suddenly leapt off Shinichi's shoulder and danced around a bit, the hawk hopping up and down on top of something laying in the grass. Shinichi figured it was whatever the object that fell out of Hakuba's pocket must have been.

Just then, the lights of the van they'd hidden deep in the woods came around the corner, and Shinichi's eyes widened as the light washed over what he was holding and he realized that he was clutching the jade Buddha statue that had been the targeted object of their theft in his hands. He looked over at Hakuba in a state of shock, the other meitantei currently busy slowly removing his suit jacket and gingerly rolling up his shirtsleeve. "But...is this...?" Shinichi found himself unable to form the sentence. _Did he really tuck this into his pocket before we even got there? He seems like such a straight-arrow law-and-order type..._

"Sometimes there are things that must be done to get to the truth. The path of legality and the path of truth don't always run parallel to each other- as you and Hattori both seem to realize already," explained Saguru without emotion as the van pulled up to them and its side door opened.


	18. Chapter 18

Happy early Thanksgiving! Review please. :)

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"You're telling me," spluttered Kaito a few moments after Shinichi had gotten done explaining how he had gotten a hold of the statue thanks to 'Saguru-niisan' and the details of their rather frantic escape, "that _tantei-san_ stole the statue?" Kaito had very nearly forgotten to use the voice he normally adopted while playing the role of Kaitou Kid when he'd started to ask the question, the sheer amazement and shock of _Hakuba Saguru _of all people actually stealing something still leaving him somewhat trying to recover his bearings. The brim of Heiji's baseball cap, rather hastily borrowed from the Osakan to cover Kaito's hair after he'd come running up to them to announce that Hakuba Saguru had been shot in the arm and needed a lift to the hospital, was partially obscuring Kaito's vision as he dipped his head slightly while glancing over at the injured meitantei.

Saguru was currently alternating between gazing out the side window of their van to watch for police in case a description of the van had been reported by the guards they'd left behind and trying to temporarily bandage up his injured forearm using supplies from the small first aid kid that Jii luckily always thought to bring along on heists. He had rather pointedly refused any and all offers of assistance with the task from the group. "I didn't steal the statue. I _borrowed_ it, much like you _borrow _the gems and jewels that you pilfer and then return later." Saguru offered the thief sitting on the other end of the large seat a glare, his irritation at the thief temporarily overriding the extreme anguish emitting from his forearm. "Besides, didn't you come here tonight with the exact same intentions in mind? Although I can honestly say now that I have firsthand experience in the matter that I really don't understand the thrill you seem to get from it."

"Well, yeah, but I mean-"

"There is a person currently rotting in jail in England for a murder that he didn't commit. And you are currently being framed for a murder that you _also_ didn't commit, which is why you wanted to get your hands on the statue I'm sure." Saguru turned his attention back to his injury that he was nearly done patching up enough so as to not bleed onto the van's floor anymore. "And in case you hadn't noticed it seems that someone, or perhaps a group of someones, is more than willing to injure or even kill people for those things." He inclined his head slightly towards the statue that Shinichi was currently holding while sitting beside Saguru. After a wince that accompanied the end of his ministrations to the wound he continued in the same emotionless tone he'd been using. "I didn't lock my mother in a bedroom, fly back here early against her wishes and also risk my father's ire for nothing. I'm going to get to the bottom of this."

"Say what?" Heiji stared in disbelief at Saguru, who merely offered a disingenuous glance to the other meitantei before cradling his injured arm in his other hand and looking out the window again.

"I think that they're all containers of some sort- a matched set of them, so whatever is within them must be the same size or perhaps even a set of the same item." Saguru had changed the subject rather abruptly with his reply, causing the other boys to look at him intently as he continued to look out the window. "If you move the statue to the left and right quickly, you can barely hear what sounds like something moving around inside of it. Plus if you look very carefully at the bottom, there's a circular shape cut into it, like it's meant to open or give way somehow."

Shinichi did just that, and sure enough he could indeed hear a gentle rattling noise coming from within the statue that ceased immediately when he stopped shaking it back and forth. After Watson had resettled onto his shoulder with an irritated squawk beforehand (why the hell was the stupid hawk sticking to him like glue ever since Saguru had been shot, anyhow?) he asked "Maybe it's like a puzzle box of some kind and we need to figure out how to make it open?"

"That's the most likely theory. I didn't get too much time to examine it before you four showed up, though. Along with whoever took that shot at you." He then looked at Heiji and Conan and began an irked-sounding lecture. "If you two would have simply told me that you were working with Kaitou Kid in the first place then I could have walked in, taken the statue and walked out instead of this entire fiasco occurring, you know. Thanks to my father's connections, it's...rather easy for me to gain access to most buildings or crime scenes, at least here in Japan that is." Saguru seemed uncomfortable admitting the fact, like it was a source of shame that he ever relied on those connections at all. "Crime scene records as well, especially where Kaitou Kid is involved since I've been working with Nakamori-keibu for so long." He carefully unfolded his arms before producing a small folded piece of paper from his pocket with his single hand and tossing it down on the seat next to Shinichi. "Apparently whoever was impersonating you was stupid enough to leave a fingerprint behind on the windowsill that they broke in through, but the police don't want that fact leaking out."

"Well, it's a start. I take it they didn't get any hits when they ran it through the ID database or they would have arrested someone." Heiji stated this flatly with a slight grimace as he unlatched his seat belt and reached forward over the back of the seat to grab the paper, then settled back in and rehooked the belt before unfolding the paper and glancing at it disinterestedly.

"Exactly. Maybe you _are_ learning something from the boy after all." Saguru didn't elaborate any further on the statement and didn't seem to have any plans to. After the others' questioning about the statement was met with stony silence the rest of the ride to the hospital became filled with a tense quietude that was broken only by the occasional hushed, frustrated curse from the three uninjured boys who were taking turns desperately trying to figure out the statue and its trick if there was one. After about thirty minutes they pulled up to an intersection near the hospital they'd been heading toward.

"Right, you can drop me off here. And no need for any of you to follow me in, you'll all cause an uproar walking in dressed like that and I don't feel like dealing with a headache from screaming, panicked people on top of dealing with getting this injury treated." When he slid open the side door Saguru added rather hastily to Shinichi "There's some money in my pocket, you can buy Watson some raw meat with it. She seems to have grown attached to you and I highly doubt they'll let a hawk stay in the hospital. She doesn't eat too terribly much." This was followed by the door sliding shut with a weak thud and Saguru strode down the street towards the emergency room's doors, the disguised van peeling away in the opposite direction a couple of minutes later after the group had ensured that Saguru made it safely through the sliding glass doors.

"Well, I guess we better find a 24-hour grocery so we can buy the stupid bird some food," grumbled Kaito darkly as they sped off into the darkness.

* * *

_Damn...still haven't figured out this thing. If there really is anything to figure out, that is. But Hakuba is right, it definitely does sound like there's something inside this thing..._

A rather sleepy Shinichi was currently half-slumped at his elementary school desk during their afternoon break. His night had been an exceedingly late one due to them not only having to drop Hakuba off at the hospital and picking Watson up some food but also dropping Hattori off at the station to catch the very last train back to Osaka as well- he'd barely made it on. _At least Hattori got to sleep on the train during the ride. I got to go home and get yelled at for staying out so late on a school night, although it was pretty funny when Ran yelled at Kuroba when he and Konsuke-ojisan dropped me off. She called him a bad influence? If only she knew..._Shinichi had barely been able to suppress a snigger at the sheer irony of Ran's ranting at the time, and it was still very amusing as he thought back to it now. Through half-lidded eyes the tiny meitantei continued his ongoing struggle with the jade statue, although he was beginning to wonder if there really was anything to Hakuba's theory.

"Heya Conan, you've been messing with that statue all day during our breaks when you think no one is looking! What is it?" Mitsuhiko's probing tone coming from the left snapped Shinichi out of his drowsiness as the freckled boy arrived at the side of his desk while Shinichi frantically tried to hide the statue. _No, no, no! If they drag this thing out and someone in the room recognizes it-_

"Is that one of those puzzle games where you hide something in it, like a candy or a present?" asked Ayumi in a lively tone as she, too approached Shinichi's desk from her own. "I'm really good at those! My mom says they're good for your brain."

"No way, Ayumi! I get to try and figure it out first before you!" crowed Mitsuhiko triumphantly as he snatched the statue from Shinichi and began tugging and pulling at the Buddah's facial features and arms for a couple of minutes, trying to find a switch or lever of some sort in the same fruitless effort that Shinichi had spent the better part of last night and this morning on. "Man, this thing is a pain!"

"What thing?" asked Genta as he, too, approached Shinichi's desk. "Why are you trying to break that statue, Mitsuhiko?" His eyes grew wide with horror as he watched the other boy pull and tug on the statue. This was followed by the much taller boy rather forcefully removing the jade Buddah from Mitsuhiko's grasp. "It looks expensive, you should be way more careful with it!"

"C'mon Genta, give it back!"

"Maybe you should let Ayumi have her turn since you couldn't figure it out, eh?" Shiho interrupted the boys' bickering with the firm, quiet statement. With only minor grousing- Shinichi really wished that he could figure out how Shiho managed that sometimes- they turned it over to Ayumi, who smiled beatifically as she took it and turned it over in her hands.

"Ohh, this one starts right here!" she cried brightly after studying the figurine for a few moments. "His arm twists like that...then his necklace gets pressed in..."

_Did a six-year-old girl just kick all of our collective butts? _Shinichi's mental question was answered about a minute later when Ayumi gave a loud victory cheer as the bottom of the statue suddenly popped out and _something_ went tumbling out of the statue and onto his desk.

"Good job, Ayumi." Shiho offered a small, momentary smile to the other girl.

"Thanks Ai-chan!" She turned and pointed to the male portion of the Tanteidan one by one with a wide smile on her face and a chest swelled with pride. "TOLD you I was good at those kind of puzzles!" She then turned to Conan, who was examining the object with a determined look on his face. "What was it in, a candy? But it looked really big for a candy..."

"It's a chess pawn." But the simple words belied his curiosity about the chess piece. This pawn was very heavy and seemed like it was crafted from solid marble, and there were tiny jewels and gems inlaid here and there in it, along with some gold inlay and a strange-looking symbol also inlaid using gold that he didn't recognize. They symbol took up about a third of the pawn and was a frontal view of a strange double-headed bird that looked like it was flying with one head facing right and one head facing left. Both heads were each wearing a crown that connected to a larger third crown centered above and the talons of the bird were spread wide to the right and left, some sort of ball clutched in the right talon and some variety of scepter or stick in the left. It was kind of too small to make out any great amount of detail. Shinichi was going to have to figure out what the symbol was, but they at least had an idea of what they were going after now: a rather expensive chess set that had been hidden in the statues for a yet unknown reason.

"Wow, that's a fancy-looking chess piece!" exclaimed Genta before they scrambled back to thier seats since break was ending and other students were beginning to file in. Shinichi hurriedly stashed the pawn and the now-empty statue into his backpack. _I have some calls to make after school..._


	19. Chapter 19

Sorry. Hope the wait is worth it!

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"Once again, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Satou and Takagi looked at each other and sighed dejectedly before returning thier attention to Hakuba Saguru, the meitantei who had been brought in (well, walked in) and subsequently treated for a gunshot wound to the forearm late last night. Luckily the damage hadn't been too severe since it was a small .22, but the bullet had dug in just deeply enough to require surgery to remove. The hospital had decided to keep him for a day due to the fact that he had undergone anesthesia, as well as to make sure that the wound was healing and not trying to become infected. Unfortunately for the pair of keiji, it appeared that Saguru's provided after-surgery pain medications had done little to dull his sharp mind, which he was currently using to rather unsubtly and forcefully stonewall them. Then there was _also_ the fact that this particular blonde-haired teen was the only son of the Japanese police commissioner- stepping on those particular toes was something that any police officer needed to be delicate about even in the midst of a massive investigation.

"Alright, Hakuba-kun. Let's go over this again and see if it helps your recall any." Takagi flipped open his notepad and read off the details that he had provided. Well, more details that had been drug out of Hakuba with a massive effort on his part as well as Satou's sheer persistence. "You saw the report on the news that ran yesterday afternoon, and deduced that this statue would probably be stolen as well. And you showed up to try and prevent the theft and got shot at before the robber later made off with the statue."

"Exactly." Saguru shrugged slightly, still somehow managing to look fully collected and imperious even with a light, flexible cast around his left arm, a pair of IVs coming out of his other arm and not being dressed in his usual perfectly tailored three-piece suit. He was currently wearing a short-sleeved dark blue hospital gown, with a thin, stiff light blue comforter and surgically clean white sheets wrapped lightly around his chest and equally white-clad pillows propping his back up. "I already told you what happened. Repeatedly, I might add. I honestly don't see why you keep rehashing it." He settled back down into his bed a bit and sipped the hospital's tea, which he made a subtle but distinct disgusted face at before setting it aside, apparently disliking the flavor.

"There were a few things we found at the scene of the shooting and robbery that seem to say there was perhaps a _little_ more to it than that." Satou's immense patience was beginning to wear thin at this point; the signs were subtle but Takagi had become familiar enough with his partner's habits to know that she was on the verge of beginning to pace the floor back and forth in front of the hospital bed in an agitated staccato, her substitute for simply reaching out and throttling what they needed out of whoever they were currently interrogating. Of course, he suspected that at least part of that frustration lay in the fact that the both of them had figured that Hakuba would cooperate fully (he was a meitantei, after all) instead of...well, Takagi wouldn't call it outright _refusal _to part with information, more of an extreme reluctance. Either way, both he and Satou had the distinct feeling the boy knew far more than he was telling about what had gone on at that storage facility last night.

"Like what exactly?" This was asked in a tone of genuine curiosity, and Takagi wondered if he was correctly picking up on what almost seemed like an anxious or worried undercurrent swirling beneath Hakuba's mild-sounding question. _Why is he being so uncooperative? Why do we have to practically pry details out of him about last night with a crowbar? _

"To begin with, there was the little boy's blonde wig that we found at the scene. It wouldn't even fit the head of most people over twelve or thirteen." Takagi raised his eyebrow just slightly; Satou was playing their trump card, the one that they hoped might finally elicit some reaction or better yet some elucidation about last night from Hakuba. Try as the pair might, they had not been able to come up with a good reason for a child's blonde wig being there other than an adult trying to squeeze it onto their head in a desperate attempt at disguise (perhaps digging it out of a dumpster en route to the scene or something) or an actual child having been there that had been wearing the wig. But if it _was_ a child, why the need for a wig?

"That's strange indeed." Saguru then glanced down at the pocket watch that was open on the bed in front of him and lifted it up with his right hand. "Now if you'll excuse me the doctor is due in here at any moment to check on this wound." This was said in a dismissive tone and the investigators exited the room slowly as they both brushed past a dark-haired girl who had just entered the room, getting the uncomfortable, somewhat irritating feeling that they had just been played for fools and had wasted thier time.

"I'm telling you, he knows something more than he's telling about last night. Actually, probably quite a lot of something_s_," muttered Satou in a huff to her colleague as they moved rapidly towards the elevators that would take them down to the hospital's lobby. "The question is why he won't say anything that we don't have to wring out of him first. He should know better than that." She pressed the down elevator button with a sharp jab that visibly showcased her pent-up steam before beginning her pacing ritual while they waited for the elevator to arrive.

"You don't suppose that he might have been involved in whatever happened last night? I mean, beyond showing up there and getting shot at that is. There _is _the still unanswered question of who dropped him off here at the hospital last night, after all." Oh, he and Satou had both asked, multiple times in at least three different ways hoping that his carefully constructed wall of obstinacy would crack, but Hakuba had danced around the question(s) with the practiced, adroit ease of someone all too familiar with the techniques that the police used to try and worm things out of people.

"That's a distinct possibility," commented Satou darkly as a soft, pleasant ding and down arrow flashing indicated that one of the elevators had arrived. "I can't think of any other reason for him to be so evasive," she finished as the pair stepped into the elevators and the doors closed behind them.

* * *

"Nah. Never seen a logo like what you're describing to me before, though to be honest I'd probably have to actually see the thing to be certain of that." Heiji's reply to Shinichi's inquiry about whether the strange golden bird on the chess piece was something he'd ever seen or heard before was not what the shrunken meitantei had wanted to hear. "How good is the camera on your phone? Can you send a picture?"

"I can try sending a photo in a picture message, sure. Don't know how well the picture will come out though. Hang on a minute; I need to find a good place to do it at." Shinichi began surveying the route home, thankful that Ran was busy at karate practice so that she wasn't there walking him home like she normally did.

"What are you looking for?" The strange male voice behind him made Shinichi leap upward slightly with a start before he turned around and realized with a flare of irritation that it had merely been Kuroba Kaito using a deep voice. The other boy's carefully suppressed snickering told Shinichi that the magician had elicited almost the exact reaction from him that he had been hoping for.

"Don't do that again," Shinichi snapped before beginning to walk a bit more rapidly, trying to find an alley where he could safely take out and photograph the strange, expensive-looking chess pawn. He finally spotted a likely-looking alley and turned into it. "Sorry Hattori, took me a bit to find an alley," he muttered into the phone after he realized that the other meitantei was still on it. "I'll send it in a minute, I'll have to hang up to take the picture though. I'll call you once it's sent, OK?" His face went pale as he unzipped his backpack after hanging up to find that the chess piece was no longer there.

"I didn't know that Fabergé ever made a chess set," commented Kaito airily as he appeared at the end of the alley where Shinichi was digging through his backpack, the missing pawn in his hand. "Was this what you were looking for? I thought it looked a little out of place in that backpack full of school supplies," he added with a roguish grin as he finished approaching the other boy. "Sorry, I couldn't resist."

"WHAT THE HE-" began Shinichi before realizing that Kaito had recognized the bird logo and finding that his anger had completely evaporated, replaced by the excitement of finally getting somewhere. "Fabergé? Wait a minute, isn't that the company that made all those fancy jeweled eggs back in the late 1800s to early 1900s?"

"That would be them, yep. And this bird right here-" Kaito turned the pawn so the strange bird was facing Shinichi- "is their logo. In fact they still use it today, though they don't make those eggs any more." At Shinichi's puzzled look, Kaito shrugged and added in a quiet voice "Hey, I'm a thief. I've picked up a little bit of knowledge about the finer and more expensive things in life." With that he handed the pawn back over to Shinichi, who leveled a mildly annoyed glare at Kaito before placing it back into his backpack. "That pawn seems pretty old, though. Maybe once he gets out of the hospital Hakuba could figure out whether it's an antique or not. Sure looks like one."

"Maybe." Shinichi wore a slightly guilty expression as he looked up at Kaito. "Do you know how he's doing? He _did _land in the hospital because he took that bullet for me, after all."

"Doing well enough to annoy the investigators that dropped by his hospital room earlier," laughed Kaito as the pair stepped out of the alley. "I guess that Koizumi Akako, a classmate of ours went and visited him when they were leaving his room, and both of them looked really irritated, or so she told Aoko a little bit ago." His expression suddenly grew very serious. "I wonder how much Hakuba told them about what went on last night, although I'm hoping it wasn't much and it might not have been if they were irritated like that."

"Well, if he told them _too_ much about last night he would only wind up incriminating himself, remember. He's the one that tucked the statue in his pocket after all. They could get him on robbery charges if they knew that." _Of course, he could drag Hattori and I both down with him too...if they believed his story that is. _"Are you certain about that logo? It's Fabergé's logo?" Shinichi found himself rather suddenly wanting to change the rather uncomfortable (for him, at least) subject of the rather insane undertaking that they had all participated in last night. He was still coming to grips with the fact that he'd actually committed or burglary- or rather that he'd been willing to commit one if Hakuba Saguru hadn't beaten him to it.

"Yes. But like I said, I never heard of them making a chess set. Maybe that's why someone is stealing those statues; they know that the chess set is hidden in them. The whole set would probably be worth a small fortune to the right collector if it's vintage Fabergé from thier older stuff, after all. Oh, there's your house. Not going to get any closer, I don't want your girlfriend coming after me with a broom, she seemed about ready to last night" he added as Shinichi blushed furiously before Kaito started taking off down the street towards the bus stop.

_Gaah. He's so irritating! _fumed Shinichi as he tried to will the blushing down a few notches before finalizing his approach to the house. _Well, I can at least let Hattori know what we've got. I'll confirm that it's the Fabergé logo first by searching for it on the Internet, but Kuroba seemed fairly confident about what it was. _At least they had some more clues about why the statues were so hotly pursued...Now they had to try and catch the person or group that was quite willing to murder to get their hands on them.


	20. Chapter 20

WHAT?!? AN UPDATE?!? :) Chapter 20, jeez...let me know what you think! My deepest apologies, trying to re-spark inspiration for this fic but I'm not giving up!

* * *

A fake! A damned fake.

He'd been able to spot (or rather, feel) the deception the moment that he'd picked the statue up and put it into the bag he'd brought with him, but he hadn't had the time to replace the statue before fleeing after chasing off the pair of boys outside of the room by firing the gun. The statue had been far too lightweight and the jade at least three shades lighter than the statues he was trying to collect, after all. He was actually quite thankful that the older boy had seen the gun and moved in front of the younger one; the gun had kicked back more than he'd anticipated and the sight had been off to boot. He'd almost hit the little kid instead of the table next to the kid that he'd been aiming for! Of course, now he wished that he would have hit the older one's leg instead of an arm because he highly suspected that one of those two boys who'd been arguing that night had taken the real statue at some point before he'd arrived.

The question was which one of them had pilfered the actual statue and replaced it with the fake that probably would have fooled most casual observers. Or perhaps Kaitou Kid was trying to clear his name and had decided the best way to go about it was getting his hands on one of the statues to try and figure out just what made them worth killing over? Was the thief maybe even working with one or both of the other boys? He groaned inwardly; he really _should_ have studied up on Kaitou Kid and that stupid No One Gets Hurt policy of his before deciding to try and frame him for murder, although it wasn't like the idea had been part of the initial plan at all.

He just couldn't be certain about the thief _or_ what he was doing and it was maddening in addition to it constantly distracting him from his mission. Plus if the others involved (whoever they were) figured out what was hidden _in _the statues they would probably be able to draw a path in his direction, though that path was going to be convoluted enough that he could buy some time if he really needed. Of course, he highly doubted that they were any closer to figuring how the stupid things worked than he was.

He sometimes even found himself wondering if the whole thing regarding the statues and their cleverly hidden contents was some variety of insane game set up by the late Thomas Cromarty to provide the billionaire some amusement from beyond the grave after he passed. Oh, the tales his father had told him of the utter horror and shock on the faces of his deceased employer's family when the lawyer in charge of dispensing the estate had revealed after a week of tense waiting that Thomas had decided to 'diversify the family assets.' The lawyer had been ordered to give no further explanation of what he phrase meant and it had left an infuriated, very puzzled family clawing at each other's throats (and wallets) in its wake. Yes the statues had been (and still _were_)worth a very considerable amount but nowhere near the full sum of the fortune that Thomas had painstakingly saved up and the relatives knew he possessed.

Why none of the tycoon's surviving family members had ever made the mental connection between Thomas having had all of the jade statues commissioned in the months leading up to his death and the 'diversification' mentioned in his will still puzzled him even now, but he wasn't going to complain about the gentleman's secrecy. After all, he had a _very_ eager collector waiting to get their hands on what seemed to be the only chess set ever crafted by Fabergé- Well, if he could manage to find and track down all of the pieces for it that was. The venture was so frustrating sometimes that he had told himself time and time again that he'd give it up and yet he always found himself drawn back to the hunt, the thrill of the chase. Now he just needed to figure out how to track down those boys...after he caught up on the morning news, of course.

He was sweating the fact that Kaitou Kid was still free more than slightly, especially when that fact was combined with the fact that one of the statues had been stolen. The remote he'd used to turn on the hotel's television nearly fell out of his hand as he saw the rather stony-looking face of the blonde-haired teen he'd accidentally shot last night fill up the screen after changing the channel to a local news station. He turned the volume up and listened to a fairly short, soft-spoken Japanese news anchor deliver a news report that he could only understand about every second or third word of thanks to how quiet she was even with the television turned up as loud as the hotel's built-in volume restrictions would allow.

"Hakuba Saguru...police chief's....shot in the arm trying to....dropped off...Nintama General...surgery...released early this morning...."

Shot in the arm? So it was definitely him after all. Now the question was how the hell to get to him and get the statue back, or obtain information on the statue's whereabouts if he didn't have it.

* * *

_Hakuba probably has some good information that we could use in the investigation, but I doubt he'll talk to Hattori or I any more now that he knows we're working with you- or rather, that we're working with Kaitou Kid. Do you think you can get to it? He _is_ in your class after all, right?_

Kaito decided that the best way to go about this was to distract Hakuba and get him out of the classroom so he could rifle through the other boy's backpack and see if there were any interesting nuggets of information regarding whoever was trying to frame him sprinkled in the meitantei's belongings. That could probably be accomplished easily enough thanks to his natural inclination towards pranks- and the fact that it was _Hakuba_ so Kaito didn't mind annoying the blonde in the least.

He just had to come up with something when the time was right- something that would force Hakuba to leave the room so that he could get his hands on that crammed backpack and perform a stealthy swap with an identical backpack that Kaito had spent nearly two hours last night making sure was worn in all the right places (that guy would notice if a single unraveled thread was in the wrong spot, Kaito just knew it.) Of course, he had to think of a way to distract the rest of the class as well since they'd probably interfere with his mission- Aoko and her mop being of the potential for particularly painful concern.

"Hey Hakuba."

"Whatever it is, no." The meitantei followed this by leveling a superior glare at Kaito before turning back to the class's current assignment s if the magician had never said anything at all, struggling a bit to write with the hand that still had its forearm mostly immobilized in a small, lightweight cast.

"I was just going to help you pack your stuff up since your arm is still in that cast, that's all. See if I ever ask if you need help again." Kaito stuck his tongue out at Hakuba to complete the quickly formulated rebuttal, successfully masking his disappointment before beginning to gather his own things as the bell rang. He'd been hoping for a chance to quickly skim over any likely-looking papers regarding the statues and try and commit them to his eidetic memory as best he could since the only prank he'd been able to think of off the top of his head had gotten him suspended for a week after he'd done it. He hadn't minded the time off of school at all- more time to practice his tricks and plan his future heists- but man his mom had _not_ let him hear the end of it and he didn't particularly care to repeat the experience. Well, that and he didn't feel like having to pay to have the classroom completely repainted again.

"I see." Saguru narrowed his eyes at Kaito as the half-Brit got up and carefully packed his things away. "I highly doubt that assisting me was your true motivation, Kuroba. Just ask me the next time that you want to copy a homework assignment." Of course, Saguru had little doubt that Kaito's _real_ motivation lay in trying to sneak a peek into his ongoing research on the statues and his attempts to figure out who was behind the series of crimes related to them. He didn't want to tip his hand that he did in fact actually have some of his papers on him, however, since he had some research to still do and he didn't want the other boy messing up his neatly filed and organized research.

"Ha, he has you nailed there doesn't he Kaito? I can tell by the look on your face," laughed Aoko as she approached his desk. "Not that I blame you for wanting to copy from him, but-" her sentence was cut off as she realized that Kaito was already gone along with his highly annoyed, kid-caught-with-hand-in-the-cookie-jar expression. _Both Hakuba-kun and Kaito have been acting so strangely since that murder at the museum last week..._

"You worry too much about that idiot, Aoko-san. Or maybe I should say idiot_s_." Akako's eyes narrowed in what was either anger or amusement as she approached the other girl; Aoko couldn't quite tell which it was.

"Well they're both being so weird-"

"What are you talking about?" Akako allowed herself a single amused chuckle and tiny, tight smile before her face relaxed into its usual neutral expression. "Kaito-kun _always_ behaves that way, and so does Saguru-kun when he's on a case."

"Mmm, I suppose you're right. Kaito needs to learn to do his own homework, though, so I'm glad Saguru-kun didn't let him copy it." Aoko nodded to herself and then exited the room, not realizing that she'd stepped on a small piece of paper that had fallen out of Saguru's backpack in the process. Akako bent down and discovered that it was a photograph of a little boy with glasses- a boy that had the aura about him of someone much older than he appeared physically.

* * *

"Well, I tried to get a hold of his papers before school let out. But I think that Hakuba knew what I was up to unfortunately. Wouldn't let me near his stuff and gave me that knowing glare of his." Kaito let out a dejected sigh as Shinichi let out a sigh of his own on the other end of the phone at the same time. "Hey, wait a minute, don't you still have his hawk at your house?"

"Yeah. Although I don't know if I want Hakuba to take her back for a while yet to be honest. She's helping to keep Mouri-ojisan in line." Shinichi didn't elaborate any further. "He's called a couple times to check up on her but he hasn't said if or when he's picking her back up."

"Well ask him, maybe you can get some information out of him when he comes over or something." It was just then that Kaito spotted Saguru out of the corner of his eye being walked down the street in front of the alley he was calling from by a pair of plainclothes detectives who both looked very irritated with the blonde, notebooks in hand and questions obviously being asked. "Ehh, looks like they're questioning Hakuba again. Just saw him walk by with a ticked-off detective on either side of him. Want me to try and listen in?"

"If you can do it without being obvious about it. I have to go, Ran will start to worry about me if I'm outside much longer since I haven't called her." Shinichi was wondering what direction that the police's case was taking about the theft last night- and also wondering what if any information his fellow meitantei was feeding them.

"Alright. I'll call you later." With that, Kaito hung up and began an unobtrusive shadowing of the rather unhappy-looking trio.


End file.
